Thoughts on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans

Some Exposition of Romans and a few Rabbit Trails

By: Tom Adcox

Paul, slave of Christ Jesus, a called apostle, having been set apart for the good news of God,

Paul’s Hebrew name was Saul, a word meaning “desired” or “asked for.” Saul was also the name of the first king of Israel. We are told in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel that as Samuel grew old and his sons did not walk in his ways, but turned to evil, the people of Israel asked for a king. Saul was the one the Lord chose to be that king. Could it be that Saul, “desired,” was chosen by God as one desired by Israel? But he was not the one that God desired. David was the one of God’s choice. David means “beloved.”

We have nothing in Scripture about the name Saul as related to Paul, but perhaps it indicates that God desired such a man to be his apostle. His name Paul is Roman and means “small” or “least.” In Eph. 3.8 Paul says that he was the least of all saints, and in 1 Cor. 15.9 he says that he was “the least of the apostles” and “not fit to be called an apostle because [he] persecuted the church of God.” We would think that Paul was the greatest of the apostles and that we are the least of all saints.

Despite his record of persecuting the church, including approving of the stoning of Stephen (Acts 22.20), Paul was a called apostle. He did not take the position for himself, but was called, called by God. He was “set apart for the good news of God.”

²which he promised beforehand through his prophets in holy writings ³concerning his Son,

The good new of God was not unexpected. It was prophesied in the Old Testament, beginning with Gen. 3.15, where we are told that a Savior would come who would give his life by having his heel bruised to save his people even as he bruised the head of Satan, the author of sin. Moses tells us in Dt. 18.15 that God would raise up a prophet like himself. That Prophet was more than a prophet, but the Son of God and Savior of the world. Psalm 22 gives us a graphic description of his crucifixion before crucifixion was even known of in Israel. Isaiah says in 7.14 that a virgin would give birth to a son who would be “God with us.” And there are many more such prophecies. Paul became an apostle of that good news.

having come from David’s seed

That Son would come from David’s seed, another Old Testament prophecy. In 2 Sam. 7.12-13 God promises David that his throne would last forever: “When your days have been fulfilled, and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you who will proceed from your loins, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³He will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” V. 16 adds, “And your house and your kingdom will be made sure forever before you. Your throne will be established forever.” This prophecy applied first to Solomon, David’s son, who would succeed him as king of Israel, but it extends to the Lord Jesus, the Seed of David who would reign forever.

according to flesh,

Solomon and all his descendants were born of the flesh of David, as was the Lord Jesus, but the Lord’s descent was by way of Mary, a virgin who was made pregnant by the Holy Spirit, so that the birth of the Lord was not just of flesh (see Jn. 1.14), but of the Spirit. God was his Father and Mary was his mother.

⁴having been declared Son of God in power according to the Spirit of Holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

As a man, the Lord Jesus appeared to be just a man. In Phil. 2.5-8 we read,

Have this way of thinking in you which also was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, being in the form of God, did not consider it something to be held onto to be equal with God, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, having become in the likeness of men, ⁸and having been found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, having become obedient to death, but death of a cross.

The Lord was God, but he became fully human, even taking the form of a slave, in the likeness of men, appearing as a man, even dying, as all people will short of the rapture and the return of the Lord. But this lowly figure, this weak human (2 Cor. 13.4), was declared Son of God in power by the Holy Spirit as demonstrated by resurrection from the dead. Death could not hold him because he was sinless and had died in obedience to his Father. He was not subject to death (Jn. 10.17-18), but willingly dismissed his spirit when God’s time for him to die came (Mt. 27.50, Jn. 19.30).

Resurrection is perhaps the greatest power known to man. It is quite remarkable what man is able to do. We have gone from a primitive state to having all the modern inventions that we have, even sending men to the moon. But we cannot raise people from the dead. Some have been resuscitated from death through medical knowhow, but that is simply bringing a person back to the same life and he will die again. But God is able to resurrect – to give one a new kind of life in a spiritual body, and that life is not subject to disease and decay and will never end. Such is the power of God. That is Jesus Christ our Lord.

⁵through whom we received grace and apostleship

Paul was only a man, and not a very good man at all, as we all are. He persecuted those who did not agree with him on his beliefs about God and his rules. We have seen that he admitted this. But through the resurrection and enthronement of the Lord Jesus he received grace. It is easy for us just to pass over that word grace. We are so familiar with it. We say it is undeserved love and move on. But grace is a magnificent reality. John writes in his first epistle that love is what God is! Grace is not just a thing, an aspect of God. It is a Person. I like to compare it to a computer: grace is God’s operating system. Every good thing there is is there because of what God is. We sometimes ask why there is evil in the world. Given the sinful condition of humanity, the question is why there is good in the world. It is because God is love. That is grace.

Not only did Paul receive the grace of being saved by the Lord Jesus, forgiven for his awful sins. He received apostleship, a job at the top of the spiritual heap. How could such a man deserve that? He did not deserve it. It is grace. How could any of us sinners have a place with God? Grace. In reality Paul’s job was not at the top of the heap. He was a slave. The Lord Jesus said that anyone who wants to be great among God’s people must be a servant, and whoever wants to be first will be slave of all (Mk. 10.43-44). The Lord Jesus himself, in his millennial kingdom, will gird himself and have his slaves recline at the table and serve them (Lk. 12.37). The Lord! Serving his slaves! What kind of kingdom is this? A kingdom of grace. If you still think Paul was at the top of the heap, read 2 Cor. 4.8-12 and 11.23-28.

for obedience of faith among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name,

Paul, the consummate Jew (2 Cor. 11.22, Phil. 3.4-6) became the apostle to the Gentiles (Rom. 11.13, Gal. 2.8), not trying to convert them to Judaism, but to the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, the Jews had no dealings with Gentiles (Jn. 4.9, 18.28). He was not calling people to obedience to the Jewish law, but to the obedience of faith in Christ. I remember about 25-30 years ago hearing Elisabeth Elliot say about Christian life, “Faith and obedience. That about covers it, doesn’t it?” That has stuck in my mind ever since. That is Christian life, trust God and obey him. Everything falls under one or both of those headings. Don’t complicate things.

And Paul is doing this on behalf of God’s name. All that we do should be done for God. We need to help others, but it should be in God’s name. He is what life is about.

⁶among whom you also are Jesus Christ’s called ones,

We saw in v. 1 that Paul did not assume the position of apostle, but was called by God to it. It is the same with all Christians. We did not just decide to become Christians. We were called by God. In Jn. 15.16 the Lord Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you…,” and in Jn. 6.44 he says that no one can come to him unless the Father draws him. Just as surely as God called Paul to apostleship he called us to himself. He wanted us. How blessed we are.

⁷to all those being in Rome, God’s beloved, called saints:

And these Christians who were in Rome were not just called by God. They were God’s beloved ones. And so are we God’s beloved. And these were saints, as we are. The word “saint” has been badly abused. People think of saints as especially good Christians, but the word means literally “holy one.” “Saint” and “holy one” are synonyms. They mean the same thing. “Saint” is Latin. “Holy” is Old English, and they mean the same thing. All saved people – Christians – are saints, holy ones. Notice in reading through Paul’s letters to churches that in many of them he called his readers saints, and there are many references to the saints all through his letters. If you are saved you are a saint.

Now let us see that the word “holy” has two meanings. On the one hand it refers to God. Rev. 15.4 says that only God is holy. There is no evil in him and there is nothing but good in him. None of us can say that about ourselves. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3.23). In that sense we are not holy ones, saints. But the word also refers to something set apart for God. That is the sense in which we are saints. God called us and set us apart for himself. It is up to us to live that out (Phil. 2.12), but whether we do nor not, God has set us apart and calls us saints. Let us take seriously the fact that we are set apart for God. There are rewards for those who do, but those rewards can be lost (Rom. 14.10, 1 Cor. 3.11-15, 2 Cor. 5.10, Rev. 3.11).

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ.

In every one of Paul’s epistles he prays for grace and peace to his readers. We tend to overlook these words as just part of a greeting and move on to the next verse. But grace and peace are not to be overlooked. They are of major importance in the Scriptures. Refer back to v. 5 and our remarks on grace there, and include peace in those remarks. Peace is not just a condition. It is a Person. In a remarkable prophecy of the Lord’s birth in Bethlehem in Micah 5.1-5, in speaking of the Lord, Micah writes, “This one will be peace.” Not, he will give peace, but he will BE peace. In Jn. 14.27 the Lord Jesus says to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you,” and in Jn. 16.33 he adds, “… in me you may have peace.” Eph. 2.14 says, “For he himself is our peace….” Take time to meditate on grace and peace. They are some of what God is.

⁸First indeed, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed in all the world.

Having concluded his opening remarks and greetings, Paul turns to the Romans themselves. He is thankful for them, specifically because their faith is going out as a testimony, a preaching of the good news, in all the world. Rome was the center of its world in those days. “All roads lead to Rome,” as “they” say. The emperor might send out information or commands to the empire, and his couriers would go to every nook and cranny with his missives. Everything in the empire that affected Rome took those roads back to Rome. With all of this coming and going the news of the faith of the Roman Christians was carried throughout the empire. Other Christians would ne encouraged by the news of their faith. That raises a question about us, about our local churches. Is anything going out about what the Lord is doing among us? Our faith should be of such character that others are getting wind of it. Let us pray for God to move so among us.

⁹For God is my witness whom I serve in my spirit in the good news of his Son,

“God is my witness.” What can this mean? We cannot call God into a court of law and have him give testimony. It seems to me first that God testifies to Paul himself in his heart. Paul has the peace of God within. I am sure we have all experienced this testimony. We have a thought about some matter of truth and falsehood or of whether or not to do something. Somehow we know within what is the will of God. And we have sometimes had such an inner witness about another person or what he says. We “just know” that he is genuine or not or that what he says is true or not. In this verse of Romans Paul is saying that God is testifying to him in his own heart. Paul uses the same statement in Phil. 1.8.

Then Paul writes “… whom I serve in my spirit.” Our spirit is our organ, if I may use that term, of contact with God. He tells us in 1 Thess. 5.23 that we are spirit, soul, and body. Our body is our physical being that is our means of contact with the world. Our soul is our psychological aspect. The Greek word for “soul” is psyche, the root of the word “psychology.” It consists of mind, emotions, and will. We might say that it is the real me. It is my personality, my intellect, my feelings, my willpower or lack of it. A soul is a person. It is instructive that Gen. 2.7 says that when God breathed into the nostrils of Adam that he became a living soul. He does not have a soul. He is a soul, a person with mind, emotions, and will. It is very interesting that Gen. 1.20-21 says that the animals are, not have, living souls. When the Bible speaks of the saving of the soul, it does not mean that we have something in us that gets saved. It means that we began to be saved. Salvation lasts a lifetime. There is much more on this in my article Aspects of Salvation, available at no cost on my website, www.tomadcox.com.

So – we are beings who consist of spirit, soul, and body. Our problem is that because of sin our spirits are dead toward God (Eph. 2.1). Our spirits must be brought to life in order for us to have a relationship with God. That is why the Lord Jesus says in Jn. 3.3 and 5 that we must be born again. That new birth has to do with the spirit, the bringing of it to life by the entrance of the Holy Spirit into our spirits when we trust Christ as Savior.

Paul says that he serves God in his spirit “in the good news of his Son.” He is in contact with God, in his spirit he is communicating with God, about what he is supposed to do and say with regard to the good news of his Son, the Lord Jesus. In 1 Cor. 2.1-2, he writes, “And I, having come to you, brothers, did not come with excellency of word or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony [or mystery, the Greek manuscripts differ] of God, for I decided not to know anything among you if not Jesus Christ and him crucified.” What he is preaching comes from God, not from his own thoughts.

as unceasingly I make mention of you ¹⁰always in my prayers, imploring if perhaps now at last I will be made successful by the will of God to come to you.

Here Paul goes back to his statement in v. 8, “First indeed, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed in all the world.” He has given thanks to God for their faith and its impact on the world, and now he states his unceasing prayer for them. He has wanted to visit Rome. In Acts 19.21 he says, “After my having been there [Jerusalem], I must see Rome also.” And here he states his prayer that he might at last visit Rome.

¹¹For I long to see you that I may share some spiritual gift to you for you to be strengthened.

Paul has spent his life since meeting the Lord Jesus in preaching and teaching the good news. He has seen a good part of his world for that day, and now he wants not just to see Rome, but to strengthen the Christians there spiritually.

¹²But this is to be encouraged together with you through the faith in one another, both yours and mine.

And he does not want just to strengthen them, as though he was above them and could not be helped by them, but he wants them and himself to be encouraged together as they share their faith.

¹³Now I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that many times I purposed to come to you and was hindered until now, that I might have some fruit also among you, as also among the other Gentiles.

Paul continues with his thought of wanting to see Rome and having some ministry there. He had not failed to go to Rome because he thought less of them, but the Lord had not yet led him there. God had sent him to other Gentiles. Since he had not yet been sent to Rome, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul writes this epistle to the Romans. If not in person, he will share with them by writing to them.

And what a writing it is. It is the most complete of Paul’s letters, beginning with the lost condition of the world and going through the need for salvation, not through works of the law, but by repentance and faith, and going through the need for coming into victory and maturity as Christians. He deals with God’s relationship with the Jews. He had rejected them for a time because they had rejected their Messiah and put him to death, but ultimately a remnant would return and be saved. Then he goes into the practical aspects of Christian life and ends with a long list of greetings. Romans is not a theology textbook, but there is much theology in it. It is one of the great writings of all history.

¹⁴Both to Greeks and to foreigners, to wise and to foolish, I am debtor, ¹⁵so as for me I am ready also to preach the good news to you, the ones in Rome.

Paul sees himself as a debtor. He had received such great grace from God, forgiveness for his persecuting the Lord Jesus through persecuting his people, filling him with the Holy Spirit, and calling him into such a great ministry. What more could he do but yield himself wholly to the Lord and preach his message. He preached to Greeks. “Greeks” in this context does not mean just people of Greek nationality. The ancient Greeks had such influence on the world of that day that Gentiles who had adopted Greek ways were often called Greeks. Many people in other countries who were not Greek in nationality spoke Greek. Indeed, our New Testament was written in Greek originally. As opposed to Jews, Greek could mean all Gentiles (see for example 1 Cor. 10.32 where “Greeks” = “Gentiles”). So in this verse of Romans “Greeks” means “Gentiles.”

Paul also says he is indebted to foreigners. The Greek word here is barbaros. It means “foreigner,” but the Greeks who could not understand their languages said that their speech sound like “barbarbar.” They were barbarians. It was simply a matter of language, but many of these foreigners were not as civilized as the advanced Greeks, so barbarian came to mean uncivilized, crude, and even violent. I think that Paul meant “foreigners,” but many would have looked down on these foreigners as barbarians.

Paul also saw himself as a debtor to wise and foolish. Everyone, Greek, foreigner, barbarian, wise, foolish needed to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, and Paul was so indebted to God that he felt he was obligated to share this with all others. Do we have that same sense of indebtedness?

So, Paul says, “I am ready also to preach the good news to you, the ones in Rome.” Rome and the Romans were hated by the Jews because they had conquered the Jews and ruled over them with an iron hand. Their fondest dream was the coming of their Messiah to drive out the hated conquerors and restore them to freedom and self-rule. We are not told whether or not Paul felt the same way, but at this point in his life he was ready to preach the good news even to them.

Then comes one of the great statements in the Bible:

¹⁶For I am not ashamed of the good news, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone having faith, both to Jewish people first and to Greek. ¹⁷For God’s righteousness is revealed in it from faith to faith, as it has been written, “But the righteous will live by faith” [Hab. 2.4].

Paul may have been a lowly Jew in the eyes of the Romans, or some of them. One of them, Pilate, said to the Lord Jesus, “Do you not know that I have authority to release you and I have authority to crucify you?” But lowly Jew or not,  Paul was not ashamed of the good news. Pilate thought he had power. (The Lord Jesus had answered him, “You would have no authority against me if it had not been given to you from above.”) Paul had real power, God’s power to save, and that power was and is available to everyone who would trust in Christ. Pilate had worldly power for a limited time. Paul, under God, had divine power for eternity. That power overcomes the world. The Lord Jesus said, “I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16.33).

The Jews had the first opportunity for salvation, beginning with God raising up Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to found a nation that was to be his people. By the time the Lord Jesus came the Jewish leaders were far from God and they did not trust in Christ, so God turned to the Gentiles. Keep in mid that the first Christians were all Jews, but most Jews turned against Paul and other Christian leaders and Christianity soon became a Gentile faith: “to Jewish first and to Greek,” or to Gentile).

Paul is not ashamed of the good news because God’s righteousness is revealed in it and that righteousness is available for salvation to all who will have faith in Christ. When we think of salvation we do not think so much of power. There is no great explosion or display of physical power when a person is saved, but there is mighty power in the saving of a person. Her is a person who is held in the spiritual world by Satan, who intends to take him to hell. And man is helpless to do anything about it. The wages of sin are death, and that means eternal spiritual, conscious death in hell. We are helpless and hopeless.

But God…. Beautiful words, but God. But God did something about it by sending his Son to die for or sins. He is worthy to die for our sins because he did not have any sins of his own. And because of that God could and did raise him from the dead. That is the mightiest display of power in the history of the world. Who can raise a person from the dead? Only God. He was righteous in doing this because the Lod Jesus had no sin. God’s power is revealed in this, and we can take hold of this power for ourselves by faith. We can do nothing by way of works to save ourselves, but we can receive the free gift of salvation.

Then Paul quotes Hab. 2.4: “But the righteous will live by faith.” This verse, foundational to the Bible and to Christian faith, is repeated in Gal. 3.11 and Heb. 10.38. I say foundational to the Bible because it includes the Old Testament as well as the New. Salvation has always been by grace through faith. Gen. 15.6 tells us that Abraham had faith in God and it was credited to him as righteousness. When I was very young I got the idea that Jews were saved by keeping the law and Christians by faith. I don’t know if someone said that or I just came up with it somehow. Whatever, that is not true. Every Jew who ever got saved was saved by grace through faith, just as with people becoming Christians. “But the righteous will live by faith.”

And not only do we gain spiritual life by faith, but we also live our lives by faith. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 5.7 that we walk by faith, not by sight. Faith gets us started. Faith keeps us going. Many times in life we do not understand what is going on. It is there most of all that we must trust in God no matter what.

¹⁸For God’s wrath is revealed from Heaven on all irreverence and unrighteousness of men, those suppressing the truth in unrighteousness,

We often hear of the wrath of God. God is very patient. He has poured out judgment many times in history on the irreverent and unrighteous, but he has waited for thousands of years at this date for final judgment when he will throw antichrist and his false prophet into hell and imprison Satan in the abyss for another thousand years. Then final judgment will fall at the great white throne when God will cast Satan and his followers into hell and do away with evil itself.

This will include those suppressing the truth. There has always been suppression of the truth by governments that keep their people from knowing the truth, and by individuals and groups doing the same. In our day we are seeing our sources of news suppressing the truth as they support one side of the political disagreements and suppress the other. They are supposed to be impartial, reporting the news as it is, but they are not, but are very biased indeed. We see the same thing in our educational system where children and young adults are being indoctrinated rather than educated. There is a strong effort in our country to suppress freedom of speech and tell only one side of the story. These are just examples of the great unrighteousness that is going on at every level. The wrath of God is being stored up.

¹⁹because what is known of God is evident among them, for God has made it evident to them. ²⁰For his invisible attributes, being understood from the creation of the world by the things created, are clearly seen, his eternal power and deity, for them to be without excuse.

There is a lot of atheism, the denial of God’s existence. This seems to me to be one of the weaker arguments of all. Paul writes that “God has made it evident to them. For his invisible attributes, being understood from the creation of the world by the things created….” The idea that the creation just came into being of itself is utter nonsense. No one would argue that some item just happened to be. No one would argue that everything that exists just came out of nothing. Yet they believe, or want to believe, that the creation just happened. Something had to make it. Whether that something was God or some other force may be argued, but in that case, where did the force come from. It seems to me that the existence of God, whatever he is, has to be true.

And that is what Paul says in this passage. It is self-evident. God’s invisible attributes (this word is not there in Greek; it just says “God’s invisible, being understood….) is proof in itself. If there is something, someone or something had to make it. People from the beginning of people have believed in God or a god or something that made the creation. The very existence of the creation proves his “eternal power and deity.” Only such a power and deity could create what is. Those who deny this are without excuse. It is my belief that all atheism is willful: people want to sin so they deny God so as to escape being accountable to him. But that will not work. God is there and he will hold all of us accountable. Beware the wrath of God.

²¹For having known God they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their heart, without understanding, was darkened.

People started out knowing God or about God. Adam and Eve knew God at the outset. He spoke to them. Gen. 3.8 indicates that he walked with them in the breeze of the day. Somewhere down the line from their fall into sin some people did not know God as Adam and Eve did, but they knew there was a God. Over time the knowledge of him grew murky, largely because of sin. Some people thought they had to make sacrifices to God to get his forgiveness. Some even believed in demons and made offerings to them to keep the demons from hurting them. Some, even knowing of the existence of God, ceased to glorify him and give thanks to him. With all of this going on their reasonings became futile, empty of any truth and understanding. Their hearts were darkened. What a confused mess the whole idea of God became. Ultimately there was the outright denial of God’s existence. Satan was hard at work, and he still is.

²²Professing to be wise they were made fools ²³and exchanged the glory of the invisible God into a likeness of an image of mortal man and birds and tetrapods and creeping things.

In all of this confusion there were some who said they were wise. They knew how it was. There is no God, or if there is he was made in the image of man. In their great wisdom they exchanged real glory, that of the invisible God, for idols, images of men or women and “birds and tetrapods and creeping things.”Please excuse my use of the word “tetrapods.” I am a word nut. The Greek word for four-footed creatures is tetrapod, four-footed. I like the sound of it. Idolatry is an abomination to God, but that is where much of the world is now. And probably more dangerous is the making into idols of things that people would never think of as idols: money, pleasure, certain people, position, power, and so forth. We can worship even ourselves.

²⁴Therefore God gave them up in the desires of their hearts to impurity to dishonor their bodies among themselves, ²⁵who exchanged the truth of God into the lie and reverenced and served the creature instead of the One Having Created who is blessed into the ages. Amen.

With people insisting on such a way of living, God gave them up to the desires of their hearts: impurity, dishonoring their own bodies. A result of this is venereal diseases. It is as though God said, “Okay. You want to live in sin. You will reap the results of sin. The wages of sin are death.” They had exchanged the truth of God for a lie, idolatry. They served creatures, not their Creator. They will reap their harvest of sin, but God will be blessed forever.

²⁶Because of this God gave them up to passions of dishonor. For the females of them exchanged the natural use for that which is against nature. ²⁷Likewise also the males, having left the natural use of the female, were inflamed in their desire for one another, males with males, fully working shame, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was necessary for their error.

In 1 Tim. 4.2 we read of people “seared in their own conscience.” They have insisted on sin and have sinned to the point that their consciences are burned out. They no longer feel conviction of sin. They have made themselves unable to hear from God, though, of course, God can overcome any obstacle. Here in v. 26 we see that God has given them up, has given them up to their dishonorable passions. They will reap their reward.

The example here is homosexuality. In the Old Testament, in Lev. 18.22 and 20.13 we are told that this is an abomination to God, and the latter verse says, “And if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood will be on them.” I am not advocating capital punishment for this behavior, but the Lord forbids it and knows how to deal with it. We mentioned venereal disease. One of the results of homosexuality is AIDS, “receiving in themselves the recompense which was necessary for their error.”

²⁸And as they did not approve of having God in knowledge, God gave them up to a depraved mind to do things not being proper,

God revealed himself to man in the garden when he made Adam and Eve. They knew the truth of who God was and what he required, but they did not live up to what he required. Over time the true knowledge of God was rejected by mankind and gods more suitable to their sinful desires where worshipped instead of God. That being the case God gave them up to a depraved mind. The Greek word for “depraved” here means literally “having failed the test and so rejected” by God. God let them go their sinful way and gave them up to a depraved mind. He allowed them to do things not proper as listed here:

²⁹having been filled with all unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness; whisperers, ³⁰slanderous, hating God, insolent men, arrogant, braggarts, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, ³¹unintelligent, breaking agreements, without natural affection, without mercy; ³²who having known the righteous judgment of God, that those doing such things are worthy of death, are not only doing these things, but are approving those practicing them.

We need not deal with all of these “things not proper.” It is self-evident what they are. They are a sordid list of what man becomes when he rejects God. The world is reaping the results of such behavior now and will one day see God’s final judgment. And in their rejection of God and boldface flaunting of their evil practices, doing things that they know deserve death, they also approve of others doing these things. Righteous judgment is coming.

2. Therefore you are without excuse, O man, everyone passing judgment, for in that in which you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, for you, the one judging, are practicing the same things. ²But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth on those practicing such things. ³But do you think this, O man, the one judging those practicing such things and doing them, that you will escape the judgment of God?

There are some who pass judgment on such things, but they are doing the same things themselves. God says that they are without excuse. It is often difficult for a human court to determine whether someone accused is guilty or not, but there is no hiding from God. He knows the truth and his judgment is true. No one can escape the judgment of God.

⁴Or do you think little of the riches of his kindness and the forbearance and the longsuffering, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

This verse reminds us of 2 Pt. 3.9: “The Lord is not slow concerning the promise, as some count slowness, but is longsuffering toward you, not being willing for any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” As much evil as there is in the world today it is difficult to understand why judgment has not fallen already. Peter tells us that God is not slow – he is patient. He is giving people much time to repent. He does not want to condemn people. Ezk. 33.11 says, “’As I live,’ says the Lord I AM, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’” I think some people’s concept of God is that he is a mean judge just waiting for someone to do wrong so he can punish him. No, God is longsuffering. That means that God is suffering as he watches people destroying themselves. Is. 63.9 says that in all their distress he was distressed. We just noted Ezk. 33.11 that tells us that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He is giving the wicked time to repent. He wants them to live. Paul follows this thought here in Romans: the kindness of God leads to repentance. Yet some will not repent, thinking little of the actual kindness and forbearance of God that is giving time.

⁵But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of God’s righteous judgment,

But God’s patience will run out. Those who insist on continuing in evil are treasuring up wrath on themselves. It will fall “in the day of wrath and revelation of God’s righteous judgment.”

⁶who will give to each one according to his works, ⁷to those indeed who according to endurance in good work seeking glory and honor and immortality, life eternal, ⁸but to those of selfish ambition and disobeying the truth, but obeying unrighteousness, wrath and rage, ⁹tribulation and distress on every soul of man working evil, of Jewish people first and of Greek,

All of us, saved and lost, will receive according to our works, those living for God, life eternal, “but to those of selfish ambition and disobeying the truth, but obeying unrighteousness, wrath and rage, ⁹tribulation and distress on every soul of man working evil, of Jewish people first and of Greek.” In this time of judgment religion counts for nothing. It does not matter whether one is Jew or Greek or any other religion. We are not saved by being religious. Indeed, religion can be one of Satan’s best weapons. He can lull people to sleep by telling them, without their knowing it, of course, that they are alright with God because they are religious. We are alright with God by repentance and faith in Christ as our Savior and living in obedience to him. Going to church services on Sunday will not get you into Heaven. Genuine faith in Christ will. On this matter of receiving according to our works, it is important for Christians to see that there are rewards in the kingdom for Christians, and these can be lost. See Rev. 3.11.

Where these verses say “disobeying the truth” and “obeying unrighteousness,” the Greek word basically means “refusing to be persuaded” by God and “being persuaded” by unrighteousness. God has given us the truth in his word, but those who disobey the truth are actually refusing to be persuaded by what God says, and those obeying unrighteousness are refusing what the righteous God says. It is a choice. Those who disobey are deliberately turning against God and choosing sin. As a result they will receive “wrath and rage, ⁹tribulation and distress” unless they repent. They have no one but themselves to blame.

The matter of Christians receiving according to their works is one that needs more attention. I suggest that you read Chapter 7, What About Works and Rewards?, in my book, Mega Grace, available at no charge on my web site, www.tomadcox.com. Let me just do a quick summary here. In Rom. 14.10 we read, “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God,” and 2 Cor. 5.10 says, “For it is necessary for all of us to appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive back the things done through the body, according to the things he did, whether good or bad.” Some might think that we will appear before the Lord as to being saved or being lost. Another passage, 1 Cor. 3.10-15 clears up this question: Paul says that he has laid a foundation for the church and that foundation is Jesus Christ. Then he says that whatever each Christian builds on that foundation will one day be tried by fire. If our works amount to wood, hay, and straw, they will be burned up, but if they amount to gold, silver, and precious stones, they will be proved by the fire. Those whose works are proved will receive a reward. Then v. 15 really answers our question: “If any man’s work be burned, he will suffer loss, but he will be saved, but so as through fire.” So we see that we are dealing with rewards for the Lord’s people according to their works in this life, not with whether or not one is saved or lost. One is saved by grace through faith alone. One is rewarded according to his works.

¹⁰but glory and honor and peace to everyone doing the good, to Jewish people first and to Greek, ¹¹for there is no partiality with God.

Going back to v. 7, we see that the saved will receive eternal life, and Paul adds here that those who serve God faithfully will know glory and honor and peace, and again, there is no difference between Jew and Greek. The Jews had a strong tendency to look down on all who did not follow their beliefs, but in Christ all are equal as far as salvation goes, though there are rewards for some. And God does not show partiality. He does not have favorites. He loves all equally.

¹²For as many as sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as sinned with law will be judged through law.

The majority of people in Paul’s day, and probably all through history and today, have not known the Jewish law. But all people, I believe, know right and wrong. Paul says that those who did not know the Jewish law, but sinned, will perish without law. God knows what they deserve even though they did not know the law. Those who sinned with the law will be judged by the law. But there is more to this story.

¹³For not the hearers of law are righteous before God, but the doers of law will be justified. ¹⁴For when Gentiles not having law by nature do the things of the law, these not having law are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and the thoughts among one another accusing or also defending, ¹⁶on the day when God is judging the secrets of men according to my good news by Christ Jesus.

Paul says that it is not those who know the law that are righteous before God, but those who do the law. They will be justified. We said that the majority of people do not know God’s written law, the Jewish law, but there are people, nonetheless, who live as though the did have the law. They did not follow all the Jewish ceremonies, but they knew right and wrong and did what is right. They show that the law is written on their hearts, though it is not codified in their minds. Their consciences bear them witness – they are living with or without guilt feelings.

For about all of my life I have heard it said that everyone who accepts Christ as Savior will go to Heaven, and those who do not will go to hell. Well – what about the billions who have never heard of Christ? What about those in that category who do what is right and show thereby that the law is written in their hearts? What about the millions or billions who lived before Christ even came to earth? Are they lost? I have heard a preacher say that all the people in the world who have never heard of Christ will go to hell. It is our fault that they go to hell because we did not take the good news to them. I agree 100% that we ought to take or send the good news to them, but it seems to me that if all those people who never heard of Christ are going to hell because we did not tell them, we are the ones who ought to go to hell! I cannot believe that God sends people to hell who never heard of Christ yet have the law written on their hearts as evidenced by their doing what they know is right. God knows who ought to go to Heaven whether they have heard of Christ or not. As far as I can tell, there are plenty of Christians who do wrong. No one deserves to go to Heaven. We are all sinners, but God saves those who do trust Christ as Savior by grace, and I believe he saves those who show that they have the law written on their hearts even if they do not know about Christ.

I believe strong evidence of this is Matt. 25.31-34, 41:

But when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his throne of glory. ³²Then all the Gentiles will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³And he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. ³⁴Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Then he will also say to those on the left, “Go from me, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

These people being judged here are Gentiles. They are neither Jew nor Christian. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 10.32 that there are three kinds of people in the world, Jews, Gentile, and the church, Christians. The sheep Gentiles will inherit God’s kingdom and the goat Gentiles will go to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, that is, hell. And the reason the Lord says in vs. 25-40 and 42-46 is that the sheep did what is right and the goats did not. Some showed that the law was written in their hearts and some did not. The Lord will judge according to secrets of the heart. He knows the heart of every person. Some may make a good show of being a good Christian who will be condemned because it was all an act. Others will be saved because their hearts were right. As 1 Sam. 16.7 says, ”God looks at the heart.”

¹⁷But if you are named Jewish and rely on law and boast in God ¹⁸and know the will and approve the things being excellent [or, distinguish the things differing], being instructed from the law, ¹⁹and having been persuaded yourself to be a guide of blind, a light of those in darkness, ²⁰an instructor of foolish ones, a teacher of immature ones, having the form of knowledge and the truth in the law, ²¹therefore the one teaching another, do you not teach yourself? The one teaching not to steal, do you steal? ²²The one saying not to commit adultery, do you commit adultery? The one abhorring idols, do you rob temples? ²³You who boast in law, through the transgression of the law do you dishonor God? For “the name of God is blasphemed through you among the Gentiles” [Is. 52.5], as it has been written. ²⁵For indeed circumcision profits if you practice law, but if you should be a transgressor of law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. ²⁶If therefore the uncircumcision keeps the requirements of the law, will his uncircumcision not be considered as circumcision? ²⁷And the uncircumcision physically, fulfilling the law, will judge you, the one with the letter and circumcision, a transgressor of law. ²⁸For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, ²⁹but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

These verses are an example of God looking at the heart. We need not go into all the details. This passage says that if you claim to be a keeper of the law and a teacher of how others should live, but violate the same laws, this claim counts for nothing with God. Your circumcision becomes uncircumcision, and the uncircumcision of one who nevertheless keeps the law becomes circumcision. Dt. 10.16 says, “Circumcise the foreskin of your heart….” Jer. 4.4 adds, “Circumcise yourselves to I AM and take away the foreskins of your hearts….” Paul writes here in Romans that “circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter.”

The foreskin which is cut away in circumcision is a symbol of our flesh nature. Paul writes in Rom. 7.18, “For I know that no good thing dwells in me, that is, in my flesh….”

We read in Gal. 5.24, “But those of Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with the passions and desires.” Col. 2.11 adds, “… in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands in the putting off of the body of the flesh, with the circumcision of Christ….” True circumcision, as we saw, is of the heart, not of the physical body. One of our tasks as followers of the Lord Jesus is the putting to death of this flesh. In Lk. 9.23 we have, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” We have made the cross into a beautiful symbol of Christianity, and I see nothing wrong with that, but the cross was nothing but an instrument of death. When we deny ourselves and take up our crosses, we are accepting death to ourselves. As Paul puts it in Rom. 6.2, “How will those who died to sin still live in it?” And in 6.11, “So also you consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus.” We have died in Christ, the death of the flesh, and been raised up to a new life. Act like it! Eph. 4.22 and 24 and Col. 3.9 and 10 tell us to put off the old man and put on the new. The old man is the flesh. The new man is Christ in us as our new life. Oh, how we need to realize that we have had the flesh crucified (Rom. 6.6) and live like it!

With all this dealing with circumcision as a matter of the heart, Paul calls in Gal. 6.16 for peace and mercy on the Israel of God. The true Israel of God is not the Jewish people, but the church, Jews and Gentiles trusting in the Lord Jesus as the Messiah. He writes in Gal. 3.7, “Therefore know that those of faith, these are sons of Abraham.” This does not mean that the ancient people of God are cast off by him and have no further meaning to God. Scripture is quite clear in Zech. 12 that there will be a remnant of the Jews who will finally recognize and accept their Messiah, the Lord Jesus. The book of Isaiah is full of references to their coming back to their land at the end of this age and into the millennium. Paul writes three chapters about this in Romans 9-11, which we will deal with when we come to those chapters. In Lk. 21.24 we read that Jerusalem will be trodden underfoot until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled, implying that there will be a time when the Jewish people will rise up again. I do believe that God has set the Jews aside for a time, but he is not through with them. He has protected them for nearly two thousand years of efforts to destroy them, including today. They will inherit their land forever at the return of the Lord Jesus. He himself implies in Mt. 24.32 that the fig tree will put forth its leaves again. I personally believe that the putting forth of the leaves of the fig tree took place in 1948 when Israel was reestablished as a state with its own government. Mt. 24.32-33 also says that in this generation, the generation when the fig tree puts forth its leaves again, the coming of the Lord Jesus will be near. Are we living in the last days? I personally believe we are.

3. What then is the advantage of the Jewish people or what is the benefit of the circumcision?

If God has set the Jews aside for a time, what advantage do they have? What good is their physical circumcision if the circumcision of the heart is what really matters, according to Old Testament passages as well as New Testament passages? Paul’s answer?

²Much in every way. For first they were entrusted with the sayings of God.

It was the Jews whom God selected by calling Abraham to be the people to whom he spoke, revealing himself and his requirements of man. The Lord Jesus himself said in Jn. 4.22 that salvation is from the Jews. He was born of Jewish descent.

³For what if some disbelieved? Will their unbelief nullify the faithfulness of God? No. ⁴Let it not be! But let God be true and every man a liar [Ps. 116.11], as it has been written, “That you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged”[Ps. 51.4].

What if some Jews did disbelieve? Does that nullify the faithfulness of God? No – we have free will. We can choose whether we will believe God or not. But God continues faithful to save all who do believe. Paul is emphatic: “Let it not be!” God is true if every man is a liar. If someone were to try to judge God, God would be vindicated.

⁵But if our unrighteousness commends God’s righteousness, what will we say? Is God unrighteous, the one imposing the wrath? No. I am speaking according to man. ⁶Let it not be! Otherwise how will God judge the world? ⁷But if the truth of God abounded to his glory by my falsehood, why am I also being judged as a sinner? ⁸And is it as we are slanderously spoken of and as some say that we say, “Let us do evil that good may come”? No. Their condemnation is just.

Our unrighteousness makes God’s righteousness stand out by comparison. Is God unrighteous for imposing wrath on the unrighteous? Of course not. He is the righteous Judge. We bring judgment on ourselves by our sin. When Paul writes that he is speaking according to man, he is saying that only foolish men would say that God is unjust for imposing wrath on sin. If he could not do that, how would he judge the world? Judgment is necessary to do away with evil and bring about a world without it.

Then someone might say that he should not be judged a sinner because his falsehood makes God look good. He should be commended for making God look good. Apparently some said that Paul said that we should do evil so good may come. No, he says. We do not do any such thing. We do not have to have evil so that good may come. Good was here eternally before Satan rebelled and Adam and Eve sinned. We do not have to have evil to have good. Their condemnation is just.

⁹What then? Are we better? Not at all, for we have charged both Jews and Greeks all to be under sin.

It appears here that Paul is asking, “Are we Jews better than the Gentiles?” He has said in v. 2 that the Jews’ advantage is much in every way. But he answers, “Not at all.” Indeed it might seem that the Jews’ advantage might condemn them more because they had the advantage and still sinned. But Paul says that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. Neither is better. Then Paul gives a list of ways in which we all have sinned:

¹⁰As it has been written, ”There is none righteous, not one. ¹¹There is none understanding. There is none seeking God. ¹²All turned away. Together they became worthless” [Ps. 14.1-3]. ¹³“Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they were deceiving” [Ps. 5.9]. “Poison of vipers is under their lips” [Ps. 140.3], ¹⁴“of whom the mouth is full of cursing and bitterness” [Ps. 10.7]. ¹⁵“Their feet are swift to shed blood,8 ¹⁶ruin and misery are in their paths, ¹⁷and a way of peace they did not know” [Is. 7-8]. ¹⁸“There is not fear of God before their eyes” [Ps. 36.1].

We are all guilty of sin. We might say that we have never done some of these terrible things, but many of us have had such thoughts if we did not carry them out, and we all have that sinful flesh nature that is capable of all these sins.

¹⁹But we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be accountable to God, ²⁰for by works of law all flesh will not be justified before God [see Ps. 143.2], for through law is knowledge of sin.

We are all under the law and if we have broken one law we have broken it all, says James 2.10. Every mouth that pleads that it has broken only one law is stopped. All the world is accountable to God for even one sin. We cannot claim justification by the law, for we all have broken at least one, and the truth is that probably all of us have broken many of them, in thought if not in action. Indeed, the real purpose of the law is to give us the knowledge of sin. If we do not know the law we might think we are alright, but when we hear the law we then see clearly that there are right and wrong and we have done wrong. The law does not justify us. It condemns us.

²¹But now apart from law….

“But now apart from law.” We were all under the law, but when we turn to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith we come out from under the law and are under grace. The law is still there, but as Paul writes in 1 Tim. 1.9, the law is not enacted for the righteous person, but for the unrighteous. We all know right and wrong. The righteous person will do what is right because he is committed to the Lord. He will keep the law without even thinking about it. He is under grace.

… God’s righteousness has been revealed, being witnessed to by the law and the prophets, ²²but God’s righteousness through faith of Jesus Christ to all those having faith,

“Apart from law.” God’s righteousness has been witnessed to by the law and the prophets, but the righteousness of God has really been revealed through faith in Jesus Christ, for we do not become righteous by keeping the law, but the law only shows that we are sinners because we cannot keep it perfectly. When we trust in Christ we receive his righteousness as our own. As Rom. 4.20-22 says of Abraham, “… he did not doubt in unbelief at the promise of God, but he was empowered in faith, giving glory to God, ²¹and having been fully persuaded that what he had promised he is able also to do. ²²Therefore also “it was accounted to him as righteousness” [Gen. 15.6]. Righteousness comes by faith, but it is not our righteousness, but Christ’s, given to us.

… for there is no difference, ²³for all sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

There is no difference. There are not some who sinned and some who did not. No one has kept the law perfectly.

There is sometimes a misunderstanding about v. 23. One translation at least has, “… for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” but the literal translation is as above, “… for all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” If the “have sinned” and “come” are accurate, some might take it that to mean that it says in effect “have sinned and have come short.” That is true, but it is not what the verse says. It actually says that all sinned, a past tense, and still fall short, present tense. We do not become sinless, as some have taught, but we do sometimes sin and need to confess and make things right with the Lord.

²⁴being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

So our justification is not ours by our works or keeping the law, but by grace. We are justified despite our failure to keep the law because it was made it possible by another way. Sin must be died for. If we die for our own sins, that ends in hell. The Lord Jesus was able to pay the penalty for our sins because he had no sin of his own and was an unblemished Lamb, acceptable to God as a sacrifice for sin. Thus God could forgive us for our sins by grace, not by our works, through the redemption provided by Christ.

The word “redemption” here is very picturesque. It pictures the slave market where someone might buy a slave a set him free. That is exactly what the Lord Jesus did for us. He bought us out of the slave market of sin and set us free. We are no longer slaves to sin.

²⁵whom God set forth, a propitiation,

Propitiation is another picturesque word. It pictures someone doing something to assuage the anger of a person. In this particular picture, the one angry is God, angry at sinners for their sins. His punishment is ultimately hell. But the Lord Jesus takes our sins on himself, thus turning God’s anger away from us.

through faith in his blood,

We said that sin must be died for. In the Old Testament God requires that blood be shed for the sins of his people, and that is the reason for all the animal sacrifices.

for a showing forth of his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins having taken place beforehand in the forbearance of God,

Of course, as Hebrews 10.4 puts it, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Those sacrifices were only the forbearance of God instead of his destruction of his people on the spot. He accepted the picture of the blood taking away sin until someone came who could effectively shed his sinless blood for the people. Because of that, God can forgive sinners and still be righteous. God could not just forgive us with no penalty because that would violate his own nature. He would not be righteous if he did that, and he is and must be righteous. He did pass over sin in forbearance, but ultimately they had to be paid for, either by the sinners going to hell or by someone paying the penalty for them. God himself did that by grace by providing his own Son to pay the penalty.

²⁶for the showing forth of his righteousness at the present time, for him to be just and one justifying the one who is of faith of Jesus.

“At the present time.” God forbore all those sins for centuries, but he still showed forth his righteousness by making a way by “the present time,” the time of the Lord Jesus coming to pay for our sins. He can be just and still justify sinners because of their faith in the Lord Jesus.

²⁷Where then is the boasting? It was shut out. Through what kind of law? Of works?

Can we then boast? Of course not. It was shut out by God himself making the way for our salvation. Were we saved by works, by keeping the law?

No, but through a law of faith. ²⁸For we consider a man to be justified by faith apart from works of law.

Were we justified by a law of works? No, but by a law of faith. By a law of works we would be condemned, but the Lord Jesus made it possible for there to be another law, a law of faith, that says that all who put their faith in him will be justified.

Paul has used the word “justified” several times in this passage. Just what is justification? Just as we saw pictures of the slave market, redemption, and of the assuaging of anger, propitiation, now we see a picture of the court room. Someone has been accused of sins by the accuser of the brothers and is on trial before God. Witnesses have been called and have given their testimony. There is one final witness, the Lord Jesus. He says that he has paid the penalty for the sins of this person and God brings down his gavel with a shout, “Justified!” That is, acquitted. Not guilty. “You may go free.” By grace, through faith.

²⁹Or is God of Jewish people only and not of Gentiles? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰since God is one, who will justify circumcision by faith and uncircumcision through the faith. ³¹Do we then nullify law through the faith? Let it not be! Instead we uphold law.

This third chapter of Romans begins with, “What then is the advantage of the Jewish person or what is the benefit of the circumcision? ²Much in every way.” But now Paul asks, “… is God of Jewish people only and not of Gentiles? Yes, of Gentiles also.” I suppose one might say that the advantage of the Jews was that they got  a head start. God raised them up to be his people, but a part of that was that they would take the good news to the Gentiles. Some may think that since the Jews failed to accept their Messiah, God turned to the Gentiles, but God had always intended to save Gentiles. Eph. 1.4 says that we were chosen before the foundation of the world. God is one. He is God of all. It is interesting that this verse 30 says that God will justify circumcision by faith, that is people who have been circumcised. They are not justified because they are circumcised, but because they trust in God. So are the uncircumcised justified by faith. Then Paul asks, “Do we then nullify law through the faith?” “Let it not be,” he exclaims! The law is still the law, and as we stated earlier, we keep the law without even thinking about it because it is what is right. But in a sense we do not need the law. It is written in our hearts, as we saw in Rom. 2.14-15. As we live out our faith we uphold the law. The way to enforce the law is to change hearts.

4. Then what do we say Abraham to have discovered, our forefather according to flesh? ²For if Abraham was justified by works he has a ground of boasting, but not toward God. ³For what does the Scripture say? But “Abraham had faith in God and it was accounted to him as righteousness” [Gen. 15.6]. ⁴But to the one working, the wages are not accounted as according to grace, but according to debt, ⁵but to the one not working, but having faith in the one justifying the ungodly, his faith is accounted as righteousness,

Abraham first appears in Gen. 11.26. He came along and lived long before Moses and the law. He did not have Moses or the law to instruct him. So what did he discover?

He was from Ur of the Chaldeans, in Babylonia. The Bible says nothing about whether he had a relationship with the Lord or not. All we know is that his father Terah took him and Abraham’s wife Sarah, and  Lot, Terah’s grandson and Abraham’s nephew, and went as far as Haran in order to enter Canaan. Haran was probably is southeast Turkey near the Euphrates River, more than six hundred miles from Canaan. Terah died in Haran.

The Lord spoke to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, telling him to go out from his country to the land he would show him. He and his family and some others set out for Canaan. When he was there the Lord told him he would give the land to his seed, that is, descendants. God had already told him, “And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and you will be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you and him who curses you I will curse, and all the families of the earth will be blessed in you.”

We come to chapter 15 and see that God made more promises, and we come to the verse quoted here in Rom. 4.3, “Abraham had faith in God and it was accounted to him as righteousness.” So to answer Paul’s question, “Then what do we say Abraham to have discovered?” we see that he learned that salvation is by faith, not by law. There was no codified law when Abraham lived. Salvation has always been by grace through faith. Abraham could not boast because he did not earn salvation. It was given to him. It is the same with us and with all who have been saved. The one working rightly earns wages, as we do in our jobs, but salvation cannot be earned. It is a free gift to those who trust in God, and as we now know, those who trust in God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

^6.…as also David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God accounts righteousness apart from works, ⁷“Blessed are those of whom the lawless deeds were forgiven and of whom the sins were covered. ⁸Blessed is the man of whom the Lord will not account sin” [Ps. 32.1-2].

David is another example of the same truth. He had some experience in forgiveness! He committed adultery with a woman, then had her husband killed to cover it up, but God forgave him. He did not earn that forgiveness. It was a free gift because he trusted in God. When Nathan the prophet confronted him with the truth he confessed his sin: “I have sinned against I AM.” There is not one of us who can say he has not sinned. We all have, but because we confessed and trusted in Christ we have been forgiven. It is all grace through faith.

⁹Is the blessing then on the circumcision or also on the uncircumcision? For we say, “The faith was accounted to Abraham as righteousness” [Gen. 15.6]. ¹⁰How then was it accounted? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

The blessing is on both, but not because of the deed, but because of the faith. God commanded the Jews to be circucmcised and the obedience was necessary, but the Old Testament itself makes it clear that circumcision must by of the heart and not just of the flesh.

Circumcision was the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham given by God to Abraham in Gen. 17, but it was not just a physical requirement. The physical was a symbol of the more important matter of the heart. We see the heart matter in several passages in the Old Testament. Lev. 26.27-45 deals with the blessings of Israel’s obedience to God and the penalties of disobedience. In the course of these thoughts we have v. 41 which speaks of “their uncircumcised heart.” This is the first verse that says that circumcision is really a matter of the heart. Dt. 10.16 says, “Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff necked any longer.” Dt. 30.6: “I AM your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your seed so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul and live.” Is. 29.13, quoted by the Lord Jesus in Mt. 15.8: “This people draws near with their mouth and honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” All of these men were circumcised.  Jer. 4.4 is a word from the great prophet when Judah had wandered far from God: “Circumcise yourselves to I AM. Take away the foreskins of your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done, burn with no one to quench it.” Jeremiah continues in 9.25-26: “’Look, the days are coming,’ says I AM, ‘that I will punish all them that are circumcised in uncircumcision … and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart’” (emphasis added). Passover is for the people of God. No one else can feed on the Passover lamb. But this ultimately means that true Jews are circumcised in heart, and not just in their flesh. (This paragraph taken from my booklet, The Appointed Times of I AM, available on my website, www.tomadcox.com).

We saw in Rom. 2.25-26, “For indeed circumcision profits if you practice law, but if you should be a transgressor of law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. ²⁶If therefore the uncircumcision keeps the requirements of the law, will his uncircumcision not be considered as circumcision?” Then in vs. 28-29, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, ²⁹but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”

Circumcision in the OT was a type of the crucifixion of the flesh (Gal. 5.24). God does not require us to remove a bit of human flesh. He wants us to crucify the sinful flesh nature that we all have and that is the source of our sins. Our problem is not sins, but sin, the flesh nature.

To answer this question of Paul, “Is the blessing then on the circumcision or also on the uncircumcision?” then answer is, the blessing is on the circumcision of the heart. Those who crucify the flesh with its passions and desires are blessed.

For we say, “The faith was accounted to Abraham as righteousness” [Gen. 15.6]. ¹⁰How then was it accounted? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

That is, God attributed righteousness to Abraham before circumcision was given to Israel as a command. Abraham was not circumcised when he had faith in God resulting in righteousness. The faith came in Gen. 15. Abraham was commanded to be circumcised in chapter 17, v. 11. The circumcision of all the Jewish men, commanded in v. 12, was given as a sign of the faith. Our sign of faith as Christians is the crucifixion of the flesh. The Jewish men were commanded to be circumcised. The obedience to that command is what is important, not the circumcision itself. At its base Christianity is a matter of faith and obedience. That covers about everything. In our case, the crucifixion of the flesh is our sign of obedience.

¹¹And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith that he had in the uncircumcision, for him to be father of all those having faith during uncircumcision, for the righteousness to be accounted to them, ¹²and father of circumcision not only to those of circumcision, but also to those walking in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham during his uncircumcision.

As Gen. 17.11-12 says, Abraham received circumcision not to be made righteous, but as a sign that he had been accounted righteous because of his faith in uncircumcision. This enabled him to be the father of all who had faith in uncircumcision because of the righteousness accounted to them in the same way. He is also the father of circumcision, the sign of obedience to God, not only to those who had been circumcised in the flesh in obedience to God, but also to those who had faith in God without physical circumcision, but did have the circumcision of the heart, the crucifixion of the flesh.

¹³For the promise to Abraham or to his seed for him to be heir of the world was not through law, but through righteousness of faith. ¹⁴For if those of law are heirs, the faith has been made void and the promise of no effect, ¹⁵for the law works wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.

There is not an Old Testament verse that says that Abraham or his seed would be heir of the world, but Gen. 17.5 says that God has made Abraham the father of many nations, and 18.18, that he would “become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him.” These verses are taken to be what Rom. 4.13 refers to as his being heir of the world. The point here is that Abraham did not become heir of the world through law, but through the righteousness of faith. He, and we, could not earn such a position by works. In the first place, as we have seen, there was no law when Abraham received this promise. And, again, it was because he had faith in God, so it was by grace. If being an heir were the result of keeping the law, “the faith has been made void and the promise of no effect.” The law cannot do what the promise did because the law works only wrath because no one can keep it perfectly and all are thus condemned under law.

Paul adds that “where there is no law, neither is there transgression.” That is, how can you break a law if there is no law? Paul takes this up in chapter 7. In vs. 7-9 he writes,

But I did not know sin if not through law. For I also had not known lust if the law did not say, “You shall not lust” [Ex. 20.17]. ⁸But sin, having taken occasion through the commandment, worked in me every lust, for without law sin is dead. ⁹But once I was alive without law, but the commandment having come, sin came to life….

If you are not taught right and wrong, how will you know? Of course, I believe that we all have a basic knowledge of right and wrong built in, but there is a greater development of that knowledge as we mature and have experience. And what Paul writes about “For I also had not known lust if the law did not say, ‘You shall not lust’” is human nature. How many of us have been told not to do something and that makes us want to do it? There is also a basic resistance against authority in many of us, if not all.

Another aspect of this is what we call the age of accountability. There is nothing more sinful than a baby. It does not care how many times it wakes its mother up in the night. It does not care what group it disturbs with its loud crying. All it cares about is itself and what it wants. But it is not held accountable for that because it does not know any better. It really does not know anything about right and wrong. But as it grows and is taught it learns better and becomes accountable. At some point that behavior becomes sin. So – there is no transgression with a screaming baby, but there is transgression when it knows better.

¹⁶Because of this it is by faith in order that it might be according to grace, for the promise to be sure to all the seed, not to that of the law only, but also to that of the faith of Abraham, who is father of us all, ¹⁷(as it has been written, “I have made you father of many nations”) [Gen. 17.5]), before him in whom he had faith,

Since the law brings forth only wrath because we all break it and are guilty, justification is by faith so that it could be by grace. God could not justify us by law and be true to himself, so he devised another way for us to be justified. Thus the promise of salvation is available to all, to those knowing the codified law and to those not knowing it. Even those under the law must come to God by faith. The law never saved anyone and could not, but God is the God of grace to all who will turn to him in faith. Thus Abraham, the father of faith, is father of all who have faith (v. 16). Abraham is father of us all before God, who gives new life to those dead in sin.

God, the one giving life to the dead and calling the things not being as being, who against hope had faith in hope, ¹⁸him to become father of many nations according to that having been spoken, “So will your seed be” [Gen. 15.5].

The “who” here is Abraham. He had no hope of having children. He and Sarah were beyond child-bearing age. It was humanly impossible. But God – wonderful words, but God. But God, the one “calling the things not being as being.” Sarah’s ability to conceive was “not being.” God gave life to that dead womb and called into being a child who had no way of being. Abraham hoped anyway because he had faith in the God who had told him he would be the father of many nations. “Seed” in the Old Testament refers to descendants. Abraham had no seed and had no way of having any, but he believed God and hoped in him.

¹⁹And not having become weak in the faith, he considered his own body, now having become dead, being about a hundred years old, and the death of Sarah’s womb, ²⁰he did not doubt in unbelief at the promise of God, but he was empowered in faith, giving glory to God, ²¹and having been fully persuaded that what he had promised he is able also to do.

To rephrase it a bit, we might say that Abraham looked at his own body, as good as dead, and Sarah’s dead womb, but did not become weak in faith. He did not doubt God, but was empowered in faith. He gave glory to God. He knew that God could do anything he promised. I like that word “empowered.” Where do you think that empowering came from? Abraham had no power. He was not able to father a child. Sarah had no power to conceive. But God gave him power to believe what God said. It did not depend on Abraham, except for the faith, but on God. That is so true in all of our lives. We may see no way in some of our circumstances, but God is able. It is up to us to trust and obey. It is up to God to do it.

²²Therefore also “it was accounted to him as righteousness” [Gen. 15.6].

Four or five times Rom. 4 refers to Abraham’s being accounted with righteousness because of his faith. It is though God were trying to get that through our hard heads. It is because of faith! Trust God! We cannot make ourselves righteous. We are sinners by nature. But God….

²³But it was not written because of him only that “it was accounted to him,” ²⁴but also because of us to whom it is about to be accounted, to those having faith in the one having raised our Lord Jesus from the dead,

Abraham is the human spiritual father of all who have faith. God did not bring about righteousness by faith for Abraham only, but for all who would trust in God as he did. God had you and me in mind when he raised up Abraham.

²⁵who was delivered for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

It is all of grace. This blessed Lord Jesus was delivered to the death of the cross for us. He died the death we deserve. And God raised him from the dead for our justification. As Hebrews puts it in 9.22, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, thus, no justification. God could not righteously forgive us, and thus justify us, without the shedding of blood. And as Paul has it in Rom. 1.4, the Lord Jesus was “declared Son of God in power according to the Spirit of Holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The resurrection is the proof that he was qualified to die for our forgiveness. If he had sinned he would not have been so qualified. He did not just die for our sins, but he was resurrected from the dead, a fact which Paul makes much of in 1 Cor. 15. If he had not been resurrected we would still be in our sins. Praise God, he is alive and we are alive in him with his resurrection life.

5. Having been justified therefore by faith

We receive justification by faith, as we have been seeing.

we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

The Greek word here can be translated “we have peace” or “let us have peace.” It is really not possible to know which Paul meant, but there is a good solution to this problem. I think both are true. We do have peace with God, whose enemies we once were (Rom. 5.10, 8.7, James 4.4). Eph. 2.17 says that peace was preached to both Jews and Gentiles (Is. 57.19), which means neither had peace with God at one time, but now all who trust in him do have peace. Thanks to the Lord. We have peace with God.

But there are many Christians who do not have peace with God. By that I mean that they have the peace with God that comes with salvation, but they are not living in peace because they are not trusting in God for every aspect of life. They trust God for salvation, but they are worried about money or health or problems with loved ones or a host of other things. To these Paul says, “Let us have peace with God.” Have the peace you already have. Take hold of what you already have and trust in God for these situations. Christian faith does not apply just to getting saved, but also to all of life. If God is able to save us by forgiving us of the sins that would send us to hell, and if God is able to raise his Son from the dead, can he not see us through life. Yes, we have troubles. All of us do. But the Bible says, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” We can trust him in every situation. He is up to it, and he loves us. “Let us have faith.”

Someone has said that “We have peace with God” means that we have been forgiven and saved, but there is also the peace of God. Phil. 4.6-7 says, “Be anxious about nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, ⁷and the peace of God, that surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.” The peace of God comes with our continuous faith in him, our trusting him to see us through. We do not have the peace of God simply by praying. We can pray without faith. Pray in faith in God.

Finally, we need to see that peace is not just a “thing” that God dispenses to us. As we saw in dealing with Rom. 1.7, peace is a Person. Mic. 5.5 says that “this one will be peace,” referring to the Messiah. Eph. 2.14 says that he is our peace.

I want to say a word about worry also. I have heard that worry is a sin, and I think that can be true, but worry is also a normal human response, as anger is. Eph. 4.26 says, “Be angry and don’t sin.” It is normal to be angry and there are some things we should be angry about, such as wrongdoing. The question is, what do we do with the anger. It is the same with worry. When bad news comes, worry is to be expected. The question is the same: what do we do with the worry. We can feed the worry until it eats us up, or we can turn to the Lord in faith and seek the peace we have just been discussing. It may not be easy, and probably will not be, but the Lord is faithful. Let us be faithful to him. Worry and don’t sin.

²through whom also we have had access by faith into this grace in which we have stood, and we glory in hope of the glory of God.

It is through Christ, of course, that we have access to this grace. We could say that glorying means bragging or calling attention to ourselves in some way that makes us look good, but the boasting Paul speaks of here is more a glorying in the Lord. The glory goes  to him, not to us. And we glory in hope.

³But not only, but also we glory in the tribulations, knowing that the tribulation works endurance, ⁴and endurance, approval, but the approval, hope,

We glory in hope, but we also glory in tribulations. Why would anyone glory in tribulations? We usually want to get out of tribulations. But just as pushing our bodies to their limits makes them stronger, so do tribulations make us stronger as we trust God in them. They are his tools for our growth. In 1 Cor. 9.24-27 Paul refers to the athlete who competes in a race. He says that the athlete disciplines his body to make it fit for the run. Tribulations are our exercises to build up our spiritual strength. We will all experience tribulations of some kind in life. In a fallen world that is just reality. The Christian approach is to accept them as from the Lord for our growth, not to moan and groan and even blame God. Paul Billheimer wrote a little book, Don’t Waste Your Sorrows, where he says that our sorrows are God’s means of growing us. I recommend it highly.

Tribulations work endurance. Endurance is a very important need. Going back to the athlete, we see that Heb. 12.1 says that we are to run with endurance the race before us. How can we run with endurance if we have not exercised our running to the point of endurance. Life is not a sprint. It is a marathon. Gal. 6.9 says, “Let let us not be weary in doing the good, for in due time we will reap if not giving up.” In 2 Pt. 3.6 we read that we are to add to self-control endurance. If we are not trained we will grow weary, give up, even faint. As we yield to God in our trials he uses them to build endurance in us. Matt. 10.22 says that it is the one who endures to the end who will be saved. Paul is referring here to what Peter says in his first epistle, v. 5 and vs. 8-9: “… a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time…. ⁸whom not having seen you love, in whom trusting, not seeing now, but you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, ⁹receiving the outcome of the faith, salvation of souls.” Salvation is a lifelong process. It begins when we are born again. We are being saved all through life. The Greek word for “save” can also mean “heal.” When we are born again, a matter of our dead spirit coming to life by the entry of the Holy Spirit, God begins to heal our souls (mind, emotions, will), which have been damaged by sin, our own and possibly what others have done to us. The end of this process comes at the last time when this ongoing salvation is completed.  

Endurance leads to approval, God’s approval of us. We have referred to Rom. 14.10 and 2 Cor. 5.10 about our appearance before the judgment seat of the Lord for our rewards or lack of them. All of us want to hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That is the approval of God. That comes from endurance. It starts with tribulations.

All of this gives us hope. This is not the world’s hope. The world’s hope is just wishing for something with no assurance of ever having it. Christian hope is based on faith, and faith in God is assured. His promises are sure.

⁵but hope does not make ashamed because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, the one having been given to us.

How do we know our hope is sure? “Because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts.” It is an inward knowing. We cannot prove it, but we know. Dan. 11.32 refers to those who know their God. Paul says here that “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts.” In Eph. 1.17-18 he prays “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling.” The hope of his calling. His hope is our hope, a sure hope.

All of this comes through the Holy Spirit, the one having been given to us. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples. Do you think they did not KNOW it when that took place? When we receive salvation, it is actually the coming into our dead spirits of the Holy Spirit to make them alive toward God (Jn. 3.3-7). From then own we are not just saved, but we are being saved (1 Cor. 1.18), a lifelong process, culminating in a “salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pt. 1.5) as seen above.

⁶For we still being without strength, Christ at the right time died for the ungodly.

Probably none of us have any real idea of our lost condition before Christ came. We have all sinned, as Rom. 3.23 says, and the wages of sin are death, and not just physical death, but the death of hell. Death in hell is not nonexistence, but a kind of shadowy, half-living death, in total darkness (2 Pt. 2.4, 17, Jude 6, 13), in unquenchable fire that does not burn out and does not consume its victim (Matt. 25.41, Jude 7, Rev. 19.20, 20.10, 14-15). Since sin has to be died for we had no hope. Have you been in a position of no hope? Suicidal people are there. That is what hell is like, except one cannot kill himself there – he is already dead with the death of hell, from which there is no escape.

There are several Scripture verses that speak of the desire to die:

Job 3.21: “Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hid treasures…?”

Hos. 10.8: “… they will say to the mountains, ‘Cover us,’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us’” (quoted in Lk. 23.30).

Rev. 16.15-17:

And the kings of the earth and the great ones and the rulers of thousands and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains ¹⁶and said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one sitting on the throne and from the anger of the little Lamb,” ¹⁷for the great day of their anger has come, and who is able to stand?

Rev. 9.6: “And in those days men will seek death and will not find it, and they will want to die and death flees from them.”

They may and will find death on this earth, but the feeling will be the same in hell, but they will not find it there. Does that give you an idea of our lost condition?

“But God,” those wonderful words of Eph. 2.4, “But God.” We were all ungodly, and as we said, sin has to be died for. If we died for our own sins we would be in hell eternally. Our only hope was for someone else to die for us. Someone did! “Christ at the right time died for the ungodly.” Eternal praises!

⁷For hardly will anyone die for a righteous man. For on behalf of the good man someone will even dare to die, ⁸but God shows his own love for us that we still being sinners Christ died for us.

Very few of us would die for someone else except in certain circumstances such as protecting a loved one. Many soldiers have risked their lives and died for their countries so that the country and their families and friends could remain, as have police also. Some might die for a good man. Would we die for a bad man? Christ did – for all of us sinners.

⁹Much more therefore, having been justified by his blood, we will be saved through him from the wrath.

Not only are our lives spared in this world, but, having been justified by his blood, we will be saved from the wrath to come, the judgment of hell.

¹⁰For if being enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, we will be saved by his life,

And we are not just saved, that is, acquitted of our sins and released from any penalty, but we have a new life, which is Christ himself (Col. 3.4). We still have a mortal body. It will die, barring the rapture or return of Christ. But we have a new life, the resurrection life of Christ that will not and cannot ever die. His life is our life.

This verse says that we have been reconciled. We have not yet considered this word  Paul urges us to be reconciled. At its base it has to do with change. The idea is that we change. The word “repent” means in the Bible to change one’s mind, to change from not trusting in God to trusting in him and surrendering to him. To be reconciled refers to another change. In the Bible it means to change from being enemies of God to being friends with him. In 2 Cor. 5.20 we read,

Now all things are from God, the one having reconciled us to himself through Christ and having given us the ministry of reconciliation, ¹⁹as that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and having put into us the word of reconciliation. ²⁰We are therefore ambassadors for Christ. As God imploring through us we beseech you, be reconciled to God.

Someone has said that God needs to be reconciled to us. That is a false statement. The fault is all on our side. We became enemies of God by sin. In grace, he took the initiative to deal with the problem. He gave his Son to die for us. In him he was making a way for us to be reconciled to him. That being the case Paul beseeches us to be reconciled to God. Quit opposing God and get on his side, become his friend. Change your enmity to friendship.

¹¹but not only so, but also rejoicing in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom now we received the reconciliation.

We have been reconciled to God, made his friends, saved forever by his life. Let us rejoice in that.

¹²Because of this, just as through one man sin came into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, for all sinned,

Adam is what is called a federal head. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines federal as “formed by a compact between political units that surrender their individual sovereignty to a central authority but retain limited residuary powers of government.” In terms of Adam, that means that Adam is the head of the human race, the father of us all, but we also have power to make our own choices in some areas. The area in which we do not have a choice is the matter of sin. We are all born sinners (Ps. 51.5). Rom. 8.2 speaks of the law of sin and death. That is, it is a law that we will sin and we will die. In my own thought process I have said, well, if I had no choice but to sin, why am I held accountable for it? It is Adam’s fault, not mine. Frankly, I cannot answer that question fully, but my partial answer is that even though I could not help sinning, I did at some point choose to sin. I am a willing sinner. Babies and small children are sinners. They commit lots of sins, being totally selfish. But they are not accountable because they are too young and not sufficiently mentally developed to understand right and wrong. But when they do understand and still choose to sin, they are accountable. That is all of us. When I chose to sin I became accountable. Paul says in Rom. 7.14 that we are sold under sin. All of us are willing sinners and the wages of sin are death.

¹³for until law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed there not being law,

This statement goes back to what we said about accountability. A young child is not accountable because he cannot understand the concept of law. But when he does understand he is accountable. Paul is using the fact that God had not yet given Moses the law to say that there was no law, so no one was accountable. This is figurative. People were accountable because we all know right from wrong at some point and parents are a law to their children when they tell them to do or not do something. But Paul is making a point. Until you understand the concept of law, even though the Mosaic law had not yet been given, you are accountable when you do understand it. In Rom. 7.7-9 he says that he was not aware of coveting until the law said not to covet, but when he learned that coveting was wrong he began to covet. That is human nature in our fallen condition. When someone tells me I cannot do something, my sin nature says, “By George I will do it.” We are rebels by nature. So – figuratively speaking where there is no law there is no accountability. But in reality we all know right from wrong and we are accountable.

¹⁴but death reigned from Adam to Moses,

If there was no law and so sin was not imputed, how could death reign? After all, everyone from Adam on had died up to the point at which the law was given except for those living at that time, and Enoch (Gen. 5.21-24). Death reigned because the wages of sin are death, and we all have sinned even though those ancient people did not have the law. Again, they knew right from wrong and they chose to do wrong. The Great Flood is evidence of that. How could God hold all those people accountable when there was no law? Because we do know right from wrong and we choose to do wrong. Sin reigns over all of us. We are slaves to sin. God did give a law of sorts when he told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree. We have no defense.

even over those not having sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam,

Those after Adam up to Moses sinned without law. The word “transgression” is important here (see Alford’s Greek Testament, Vol. II, at Rom. 5.14). Adam had a law – do not eat of the tree – and he transgressed that law. Where there is no law there is no transgression of the law, because transgression is by definition disobeying the law. But there is still sin because we know right from wrong. Adam’s sin was a transgression, a breaking of law. Those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, that is, by breaking a law, still sinned and were nonetheless guilty.

who is a type of the Coming One.

Adam was a type of the Lord Jesus, the Coming One. That is, the Lord Jesus is a federal head, the Head of all who put their trust in him. Just as we are all descended from Adam physically, so we who have trusted Christ are all descended from the Lord Jesus spiritually. We are born of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Physically we are in Adam. Spiritually we are in Christ.

This matter of typology is of great interest. The Old Testament is basically about the Lord Jesus. There are many types of him in the Old Testament. A type in the Old Testament is a symbol, a foreshadowing, a picture of Christ in some aspect, we could say, a prophecy of him. The Tabernacle is a great type of Christ. Everything about it is a picture of Christ. The gold pictures his divinity and the wood, his humanity. The silver pictures his role as Redeemer. The bronze, a metal made in fire, is a picture of suffering and of judgment. The colors all have meaning. They portray Christ as of Heaven (blue), royal (purple), righteous and pure (white), and as the Lamb who shed his blood (red) for our salvation. The altar depicts his cross. The lampstand sees him as the Light of the world. The bread of the presence shows that he is the Bread of Life. The incense is everything about the Lord Jesus that is pleasing to God the Father, a sweet fragrance. We could deal with the sacrifices and with the seven feasts. Typology is extensive and would be material for another volume and there are already good books on the subject.

¹⁵But the gift of grace is not as the trespass, for if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by grace which is of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

Notice that Paul uses a different word from transgression in this verse. Here the word is “trespass.” Both words refer to sin, but from a bit different angle. A transgression is a stepping aside, indicating going along the right way and stepping aside to a wrong way. A trespass is more of a falling away or a stumbling. It is still sin, but it may be more of a gradual drifting away. One is quite deliberate. The other is more a flirting with sin. You don’t really sin, but you observe it and think about it and consider it. You slowly get sucked in. That is one of Satan’s favorites tools. Paul tells Timothy to flee youthful lusts (2 Tim. 2.22). We cannot help having desires that are wrong, but we can urge them on and get into trouble. At the first sign of such, run the other way.

The trespass and the transgression end in spiritual death and ultimately in physical death, and we all inherited that from Adam and from our own sinful nature. The gift of grace abounds to the many, to all who trust in Christ. Followers of Adam in sin die. Followers of Christ have eternal life.

¹⁶And the gift is not as through one having sinned, for indeed the judgment was of one unto condemnation, but the gift of grace is from many trespasses unto justification.

God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree, but they disobeyed and that one sin brought condemnation on all of us. We will all die because of sin. But God’s grace is such that he will forgive us of a multitude of sins and justify us, that is, find us not guilty. One sin killed Adam and Eve and all of us. The Lord Jesus bore all the sins ever committed and that will be committed and provides justification if we will repent and trust in him. What grace! What a Savior!

¹⁷For if by the trespass of the one death reigned through the one, much more those receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, we have not just acquittal, but also the possibility of reigning in life through the Lord Jesus. In 2 Tim. 2.12 Paul says that if we endure with Christ in this life we will reign with him, in the kingdom I take it. But here in Romans he says that we can reign in this life. That does not mean that we will be kings and queens on this earth. We will not be reigning over others. The real reign we need in the world is reigning over our circumstances. No matter what difficulties may come to pass in this life, we can reign over our circumstances by trusting in the Lord. So many of us are weighed down by our difficulties. We tend to give in to worry, to wonder why God has allowed this into our lives, even to having a falling out with God. I have known of people who have been angry at God. I have probably felt that way myself a few times. We do not have to live in that way. Paul writes in Phil. 4.11-13, “I learned to be content in the circumstances I am in. I know also how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to do without. ¹³I have strength for all things in the one empowering me.” Paul was not dependent on his circumstances for his well-being. He knew, as he writes in Eph. 2.6, that he was seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Instead of being consumed by his circumstances, he looked down on his  earthly condition from the heavenlies and reigned over it. We, too, have that possibility, reigning in life through the one, Jesus Christ.

This viewpoint goes back to the fact that the Lord Jesus has utterly defeated Satan (Col. 2.15, Heb. 2.14, 1 Jn. 3.8). He is in total victory and we are in him. We are not fighting in this life for victory, but from victory. The Book of Joshua teaches us that God had given Israel the victory in their conquest of the holy land before they even set a foot in it. It is the same with us spiritually. Live out the victory.

¹⁸So therefore as through one trespass it was to all men for condemnation, so also through one act of righteousness it was to all men for justification of life. ¹⁹For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One, the many will be made righteous.

Paul reiterates what he has just been saying.

²⁰But law entered so that the trespass might abound, but where the sin abounded the grace superabounded, ²¹that as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The law was given for two reasons, to tell us what God requires of us and to show us that we cannot keep it. The law cannot save us, but only condemn us, because all have sinned (Rom. 3.23). Someone might say that he has been a good person and has mostly kept the law. He may have just slipped up a time or two. James 2.10 says, “For whoever may keep all the law, but may stumble in one point has become guilty of all.” God’s law is a unit. If you have broken one tenet, you have broken the whole thing. Just as Adam’s one sin brought judgment on all of us, so will our one sin condemn us.

“Why then the law?” Paul asks in Gal. 3.19. He continues with,

It was added because of the transgressions until the Seed [the Lord Jesus, see Gal.

3.16] be come to whom the promise has been made, having been ordained by angels through the hand of a mediator. ²⁰But the mediator is not of one, but God is one. ²¹Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Let it not be. For if a law was given being able to give life, righteousness was indeed from law. ²²But the Scripture shut all things up under sin that the promise from faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those having faith. ²³Now before faith came we were kept in custody under law, being shut up for the coming faith to be revealed, ²⁴so that the law has become our child leader to Christ, that we might be justified from faith, ²⁵but faith having come we are no longer under a child leader.

As noted above, the law was given to show us that it could not save us because we could not keep it perfectly, but we need something else to save us. That something else is not a something, but a Someone. The law was intended to lead us to Christ. It is like the slave who taught and trained the children of the master until they reached maturity, when they would come out from the tutelage (Gal. 3.25-26). The law has taught us right and wrong, Now we need Someone to enable us to live in obedience to God. No, we still do not obey perfectly, but grace forgives and moves on with us, and we have the assurance that we will one day be in a sinless world under the kingship of the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Romans 5 is a rather involved chapter with a somewhat intricate dissection of legality and grace. We come now to chapters 6-8 that deal with coming into victory in Christian living. Chapter 6 shows us the way to victory. Chapter 7, I believe, shows us Paul trying to live up to chapter 6 without success. Chapter 8 shows us the way to overcome the self- effort to “be a good Christian” and to experience victory.

6. What then will we say? Should we continue in sin that grace may abound? ²Let it not be!

Paul has just written at the end of chapter 5, “But law entered so that the trespass might abound, but where the sin abounded the grace superabounded,” and now he asks the question, “Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?” If grace superabounds where sin abounds, should we not sin more so that grace may keep superabounding? His answer? “Let it not be!” And he asks the question,

How will those who died to sin still live in it?

How can one live in something he has died to? The whole concept might appeal to someone who wants to keep sinning (Oh, it’s OK if I sin. God will forgive me.), but if we want to walk with the Lord that will obviously not work. God’s patience is not eternal (2 Pt. 3.9).

³Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore 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 also we should walk in newness of life.

Here Paul begins to expound the way of victory. It is that we had an old life of sin, but when we trusted Christ for salvation that old life died (actually it died when Christ was crucified, Rom. 6.6), just as the Lord Jesus died bearing all those sins. Our old life was buried with Christ. So also, when he was raised from the dead to a new life with no human limitations and no temptation, we were raised with him to a new life. We do not yet have our spiritual bodies (Rom. 8.23, 1 Cor. 15.51-52, Phil. 3.21, 2 Cor. 2.4) so we are still subject to temptation and death, but the life we now live is actually the life of Christ himself in us (Gal. 2.20, Col. 3.4). As we grow and learn we come more and more into manifesting his life.

Paul uses the picture of baptism here. We do not believe that baptism saves, but it is intended by God to be a testimony. Going down into the water is a picture of our old man, having died with Christ, descending into the grave, and coming up out of the water pictures our resurrection from the grave with a new life. We do not yet have resurrected bodies ourselves, but we have his resurrection life in is.

Ephesians and Colossians further this thought. In Eph. 4.22-24 we read,

… that you put off, according to the former way of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to the lusts of deceit, ²³to be renewed in the Spirit of your mind, ²⁴and to put on the new man, which is being created according to God in righteousness and respect of the truth.

Col. 3.9-10 adds, “Do not lie to one another, having put off the old man with his deeds, ¹⁰and having put on the new, which is being renewed to full knowledge according to the image of the one having created him….”

The old man is our sinful flesh nature that is opposed to God. It is that that is our real problem. Sins are not our problem. The sin nature is our problem. It gives rise to sins. The sins need to be forgiven. The sin nature needs to be put to death. That death of the sin nature is a lifelong process. We must contend with it until we die in Christ or are raptured. It is a part of God’s maturing us and growing us up in him. It has to do with our taking up the cross and following the Lord Jesus. Matt. 16.24  says, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” The cross is nothing but an instrument of death. We may make it a symbol or a piece of jewelry, but it is an instrument of death. Taking up our cross means that we deliberately obey Eph. 4.22-24 and Col. 3.9-10 (and Gal. 5.24) and die to the old life, put off the old man. Then we put on the new man, which is Christ in us. We are to walk in newness of life, his life manifested through us.

⁵For if we have become united with the likeness of his death, we will be also of the resurrection, ⁶knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him,

If we submit ourselves to the Lord in accepting our death with Christ, putting off the old man, we will also experience his resurrection life. Resurrection, immortal, eternal life, is what we need, but the only way to have resurrection is to die. We must put off the old man, the old man having been crucified, the flesh with its passions and lusts. That is the first step in coming into victorious life after our receiving Christ as Savior. Our old man was crucified with Christ. Live like it!

that the body of sin might be made of no effect, us to be no longer slaves to sin, ⁷for the one having died has been justified from sin.

I think that some think the body of sin is our human body, that it is bodily desires that lead us into sin. That can certainly happen as we all have desires that can lead to sin. But it seems to me that “the body of sin” is the flesh nature we dealt with. It is the old man. We have other paths to sin besides our bodies. There is pride, perhaps the most dangerous aspect of our lives (Prov. 16.18, James 4.6, 1 Pt. 5.5). There is the lust for money or power or fame. All of this comes back to the flesh, our sin nature. In order to experience victory in Christian living we must have this matter of death to self with Christ resolved. That is what releases us from slavery to sin. We have been crucified with Christ. Live it out!

⁸But if we died with Christ, we have faith that we will also live with him, ⁹knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death lords over him no more. ¹⁰For the death that he died he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹So you also consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus.

Now Paul turns to a more positive note. It has been all about death, an unpleasant subject, but now he says that if we have died with Christ (and I think that means that we have accepted our death with Christ and actually put off the old man), then we can have faith that we will live with him, and in fact we actually do live with him. We have a new life, his life. We know that Christ has been raised from the dead so that he will die no more. “Death lords over him no more.” Death lords over all of us. We know that barring the rapture or the return of Christ, we will certainly die. Many people worry about this. Many are terrified by the reality, many with good reason, as Paul speaks of in 1 Thess. 4.13, those who have no hope (see Heb. 2.14-15). But the death of Christ was once for all, no more death, and now he lives once for all, forever. So – “you also consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but living to God in Christ Jesus.” We are dead to sin spiritually with Christ, but also alive with his resurrection life. Let us live that out!

Watchman Nee, in The Normal Christian Life, stresses the point that we have already died with Christ. We were crucified with him when he died, 1990 years ago at this writing. We do not have to crucify ourselves. We have already died. He uses the KJV “reckon” in Rom. 6.11: “… reckon yourselves to be dead….” We have died. Don’t try to die or to crucify yourself. Consider it so. It is done.

¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body to obey its desires, ¹³nor present your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as living from the dead and your members to God as weapons of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will not lord it over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

Rom. 6.6 says that we are no longer slaves to sin. We all were slaves to sin. We could not help sinning. Rom. 7.14 says that we were sold under sin. We were all in the slave market of sin, but the Lord Jesus redeemed us, bought us out of the slave market with his blood. We do not have to sin any more. We have a choice. We are weak and do sometimes sin, but we are not slaves to it.

Paul speaks of sin reigning in our mortal bodies. We can certainly sin in our spirits and our souls, but our bodies, with their clamoring desires, are perhaps especially prone to sin. We all have appetites that demand to be satisfied. One of the greatest is sexual lust, and Satan is sure to give us plenty of opportunities to fulfill that desire, but we have a choice. We do not have to give in to it. We can say no. We are tempted to eat too much, to eat things that are not good for us, to be lazy, to spend our time in doing nothing of value. We need rest and leisure, but the Lord has instructed us to work, and work is good for us. It is amazing how many people find a way to get out of work and fritter their time away doing nothing of value. We can say no to these temptations. We are not slaves to sin. We are not to “present your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness.” Why does Paul use the term “weapons.” Because we are in a war (Rom. 7.23, 2 Cor. 10.3, 2 Tim.  2.3-4, James 4.1, 1 Pt. 2.11, Rev. 12.17, 13.7). Rom. 7.23 says that we have a civil war within ourselves. Satan knows how to make the best of that civil war. He knows how to help us lose that war. But we can choose to win. How?

By presenting “your members to God as weapons of righteousness.” We are dead to sin and alive to righteousness, but we have to choose to live alive to righteousness. If we so choose, sin will not lord it over us. We have another Lord. When we were under law, we lost because no one can keep the law perfectly, but we are under grace, so even though we do have our failures, God forgives us and we move on. We can win this war because Christ has already won it and we walk in his victory.

¹⁵What then? Should we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Let it not be!

OK, we are under grace and God will forgive us, so let us sin and have a good time. I am afraid some people may think that way. Paul again uses the emphatic, “Let it not be!” Why?

¹⁶Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness?

If we say, “God will forgive us so let’s sin,” we are presenting ourselves as slaves to sin again. We can choose to be free from sin, but we can also choose to sin, but if we do, we become slaves again. One problem with that way of thinking is that sin is “unto death.” We may be saved and make it to Heaven in the end, but we will live a living spiritual death in this life, a life of guilt and worry, outside the blessing of God. But we can be slaves to righteousness, which is freedom indeed, freedom from the miseries of sin and for the blessings of God.

¹⁷But thanks to God that you were slaves of sin, but you obeyed from the heart the form of teaching to which you were delivered. ¹⁸But having been freed from sin, you were enslaved to righteousness. ¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness unto holiness.

Paul reiterates that slavery to righteousness is freedom from the miseries of sin. Impurity and lawlessness lead to death, but righteousness leads to holiness, being set apart for God and being brought by him into actual holy living, preparation for the kingdom of the heavens.

²⁰For when you were slaves of sin you were free from righteousness. ²¹What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²²But now, having been set free from sin, but having been made slaves to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, but the end, life eternal. ²³For the wages of sin are death, but the gift of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul keeps stressing that the end of sin is death, and not just physical death that comes on all of us because of sin, but the eternal spiritual death of hell, and that is not ceasing to exist, as we noted earlier, but a living death with no hope of escape.

But slaves of God have the fruit of holiness with its end, eternal life, and that is not just not being dead, but having a life almost unimaginable to us, full of joyous life, of continual experience of the love of God, of ever wondering what next wonderful thing God will do. Remember that God is the most creative being there is, having thought of everything there is before it existed and then bringing it to existence with a word, and he is not out of ideas.

Paul then concludes with those memorable words, “For the wages of sin are death, but the gift of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Wages are what is due someone for what he did. Eternal life is not wages, but a gift, the grace of God.

7. Or do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those knowing law), that the law lords it over the man for as a long a time as he is living? ²For the married woman is bound by law to the living husband, but if the husband should die, she is freed from the law of the husband. ³Then therefore, the husband being alive, she will be called an adulteress if she is to another husband, but if the husband should die she is free from the law, not to be an adulteress having been to another husband.

These statements are all things we know from everyday life. If a married woman has relations with a man not her husband, she is an adulteress. That applies to men, too. But if the husband or wife dies, the living partner is free to marry another.

⁴So, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, you to be to another, to the one having been raised from the dead, that you may bear fruit to God.

In like manner, we were “married” to sin and thus were slaves to it. Here Paul reverses the metaphor of the husband dying and the woman being free, but the point is still true, and perhaps he intended to do this. In our case, God’s law will never die. It is eternal. So – the woman dies. Someone who has died is free from the law. Having died with Christ, we, the woman, are free from that old “marriage” to sin and are free to marry another, to become a part of the bride of Christ. Just as God’s plan is for a marriage to produce children, fruit, so we may bear fruit to God.

⁵For when we were in the flesh, the passions of the sins, the ones through the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit to death, ⁶but now we were freed from the law, having died to that to which we were bound, in order for us to serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter.

When we were in flesh and sin our fruit was death. But now, having been freed from the law, which condemns because we cannot keep it, we can serve God in newness of spirit. We all have a spirit, but before we trusted Christ our spirits were dead to him. What actually takes place when we first trust him is that our dead spirits are made alive to God by new birth (Jn. 3.3-7, 1 Pt. 1.3, 23, birth of the Spirit) by the entrance of the Holy Spirit into our dead spirits. We are now in newness of spirit, our spirits alive to God, under grace. We are not in oldness of letter, the letter of the law. Again, we could not keep the law perfectly so there was no salvation there, but we no longer live by the law, but by the spirit alive to God within us, by the Holy Spirit within us united with our spirits.

⁷What then will we say? Is the law sin? Let it not be!

Then is the law sin? NO! Let it not be! It is perfect goodness. The problem is that we cannot keep it perfectly.

But I did not know sin if not through law. For I also had not known lust if the law did not say, “You shall not lust” [Ex. 20.17]. ⁸But sin, having taken occasion through the commandment, worked in me every lust, for without law sin is dead. ⁹But once I was alive without law, but the commandment having come, sin came to life, ¹⁰but I died, and the commandment that was unto life, this was found in me to be unto death, ¹¹for the sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me and through it put me to death. ¹²So the law is indeed holy, and the commandment, holy and righteous and good.

The purpose of the law is to show what God requires, what he wants and what he forbids, and to show us that we cannot keep it. Paul says that he would not know lust if the law had not said, “You shall not lust.” But when the law said that it aroused lust in him. There is no sin, so to speak, until the law says what is sin. But when it does that, then we know what sin is and we know that we are doing it. He felt alive before God told him what was sin. It is like a child having no knowledge of right and wrong and having a good time doing things that are indeed wrong, but then his parents tell him something is wrong and he starts having a guilty conscience. Paul says that when he found out that something was sin he died spiritually because he was doing it. What was intended to be life for him because he was to obey the law became death to him because he could not keep it. Sin deceived him – it said that this is right, so do it, but then he found that he could not do it. Satan is always a liar (Jn. 8.44) and he knows how to use the law for his own purposes. What Paul, as a faithful Jew, thought was making him acceptable to God was actually putting him to death spiritually. But – “the law is indeed holy, and the commandment,  holy and righteous and good.”

¹³Then did the good become death to me? Let it not be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was working death to me through the good, that the sin through the commandment might become sinful beyond excess.

The good thing, the law, did not become death to Paul, but his inability to keep it did so. When he says that “sin, that it might be shown to be sin, was working death to me through the good,” I believe he uses the word “sin” here to mean his sin nature, the flesh, that we dealt with earlier. He sees sin in this sense to be something else from himself, his conscious mind and desire to serve God. We all have this sin nature, that which we said earlier gives rise to sins. We will see in vs. 22-23 of this chapter that “I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, ²³but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.” We have noted this civil war within us already. We want to serve God, but we also want to sin. With our conscious minds we love God and want to serve him, but our sin nature, the flesh, wants to sin. This shows us God’s purpose in the law, “that the sin through the commandment might become sinful beyond excess.” He shows us how wretched we are in ourselves.

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been sold under sin,

The slave market we referred to earlier.

¹⁵for what I do, I do not understand, for what I want, I do not do this, but what I hate, this I do. ¹⁶But if I do not do that which I want, I agree with the law that it is good.

Paul does not understand himself. Why does he not do what he wants, the good, but does do what he hates, sins, when he wants to do what is right? This battle within us shows that the law is good. We approve of it and want to keep it.

¹⁷Now, however, I am no longer doing it, but the sin dwelling in me.

Paul has a revelation: it is not he, that is, his conscience mind and will and desire to serve God, that is committing sins, but sin, the sin nature, the flesh, dwelling in him.

¹⁸For I know that no good thing dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for to will is present in me, but to do the good is not. ¹⁹For the good that I want I do not do, but the evil that I do not want, this I do. ²⁰For if the thing I do not want, this I do, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin dwelling in me.

This is a truth that we all need to understand. Yes, it is I who sin – I cannot blame anyone else or even the devil, but it is not the person that I am in my conscience and will and desire to serve God, but the flesh within me, the sin nature inherited from Adam. Sometimes we try to excuse ourselves, to make alibis, or to blame the devil. Yes, the devil tempts, but we are the ones who say yes. Let us admit it: there is something in us that is rotten to the core, that is on Satan’s side.

²¹I find then the law in me willing to do good, that evil is present in me. ²²For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, ²³but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin, that being in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?

This is that civil war within all of us. We noted that Rom. 6 is the way of victory in Christian living. Now we have chapter 7 where, I believe, we see Paul himself trying to live up to chapter 6 in his own strength. He fails miserably. He cries out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” But then he knows the answer.

²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself with the mind indeed am a slave to God’s law, but with the flesh, the law of sin.

Paul makes the overall statement that the Lord Jesus is the answer to his question. The answer is a Person, not a system or a plan or a scheme or self-effort. Now he goes into detail on how that answer works out.

8. There is therefore now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, ²for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus set you free from the law of sin and death.

The first word he says about this answer is that there is no condemnation. Many Christians still feel guilty about some of the things they have done that they know are sins, some very serious. How could God ever forgive me? This is Satan’s accusation (Rev. 12.10). You have been forgiven. You have been acquitted, justified. You have been declared not guilty. The Lord Jesus died for your sins and took them and did away with them. They no longer exist. His blood is sufficient. The first step in overcoming the body of this death is to see and accept that there is no condemnation. It does not exist.

Then Paul writes about the law that we will sin and we will die. What is that law? The first law is that because we are descended from Adam we will sin and we will die, but the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus says that this law has set us free from the law that we will sin and we will die. We are no longer law. Under law we will sin and we will die. Under grace the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law. We are indeed under grace, forgiven, justified.

³For the impossible thing of the law, in that it was weak through the flesh

It is impossible for us to be saved by law because it is weak through our flesh. Because we have that sin nature and are sold under sin we cannot keep it. Law cannot make us or help us do what we should. It can only tell us what we should do. And the fact that we cannot do it either condemns us.

– God having sent his own Son in likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh,

But God condemned sin in the flesh through his own Son. His Son took on the likeness of sinful flesh (Phil. 2.6-7) and took it to the cross and put it to death. He was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5.21). What the law could not do God did.

⁴that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, the ones not walking according to flesh, but according to the Spirit.

So the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us after all. The key that actually makes this take place is “not walking according to flesh, but according to the Spirit.” We as Christians can still walk according to the flesh. We can give in to our flesh nature that still tempts us. But we do not have to. We can choose to walk after the Holy Spirit, by his direction and power. We saw that we have died to the law and so are free from it. We no longer have to keep the law in our own strength. As we walk in the law, Christ, our new life, keeps it in us. Watchman Nee points out that we all try to please God, but the truth is that we can do nothing for God. God does all the work. Only Christ can please his Father. Ours is to trust him, obey him, and walk according to the Spirit, not to try to measure up. (I suggest that if you have not done so, read Nee’s book, The Normal Christian Life).

⁵For those being according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh, but those according to Spirit, the things of the Spirit. ⁶For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit, life and peace, ⁷because the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God, for it does not submit itself to the law of God, for neither can it, ⁸but those being in flesh are not able to please God.

If we are living according to the flesh as Christians our minds will be on the things of the world. We are thinking of all the things we want or want to do. We are worried about money, about what people will think of us, and so forth. If we are walking according to the Spirit our minds are on the things of God, on how we can please him, on his word and how we can learn from it, on worship and thanksgiving. The mind of the flesh is death, worry about all those things of the world. The mind of the Spirit is life, God’s life in us, and peace. If we walk according to the flesh we are enemies of God and do not know his blessing. We cannot keep the law. We cannot please God. Neither can we please God ourselves by our efforts, as we just saw, but by yielding to him so that Christ can live in us (Gal. 2.20).

⁹But you are not in flesh, but in Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, but if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.

This verse says that if the Spirit is in us, we are in the Spirit. Then Paul adds that if we do not have the Spirit we are not Christ’s. Someone might say that he just believes in God without trusting in Christ. In that case he does not have the Spirit and is not saved, for as we saw earlier, new birth is the entrance of the Holy Spirit into our dead spirits to make them alive toward God. That is what I call initial salvation.

¹⁰But if Christ be in you, the body is indeed dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹But if the Spirit of the one having raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one having raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you.

I think Paul is saying here that even though our spirits are alive, our bodies are still subject to death because of sin, but we need not fear death because the Holy Spirit who gave life to our spirits will also give life to out mortal bodies. If we die, we will be raised at the last day. If we are alive when the Lord comes back, we will be caught up to meet him in the air (1 Thess. 4.16-17).

¹²So then, brothers, we are not debtors to the flesh to live according to flesh, ¹³for if you live according to flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body you will live.

Even though we are in the flesh physically and still have to contend with our sinful flesh nature, we do not have to live according to flesh. We can say no. If we do live according to flesh, we will die. Since we will also die if we live according to the Spirit, unless the Lord returns first, I think Paul must mean what he is writing about in Rom. 8.6 – “For the mind of the flesh is death” – a death experience spiritually even in this life. I know. I have been there! But if we live by the Spirit and put to death the deeds of the body, we will live, and not just stay alive physically, but experience of the life of Christ living in us. We can know resurrection life, the life of Christ, even in this body!

When Paul says to put “to death the deeds of the body,” I do not think he means just any deed, but the evil deeds that we are all tempted to do. The body is not evil in itself – God made it to start with. It is the misuse of the body for sinful purposes that Paul means. If we do put to death the evil deeds, we will know the Lord’s life.

¹⁴For as many as are led by God’s Spirit, these are sons of God. ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again unto fear, but you received a Spirit of son-placing by which we cry, “Abba, Father!”

If we are being led by the Spirit we are sons of God. What does that mean? I do not want to go into a lot of detail, but Gal. 4.1-7 makes it clear that a newborn Christian is a child, but when he reaches the point of son-placing he becomes a son.  In the world this means that the lord of a property places his son in charge when he reaches the proper age and maturity. In the spiritual sense, a son is one who has matured to what we might call Christian majority or adulthood (this includes women), though we should never stop growing in the Lord (2 Pt. 3.18). The Greek word that is usually translated “adoption” is literally “son-placing,” and refers to the putting of a son into his place of responsibility when he matures to that point. Gal. 4.6 says the same thing that Rom. 8.15 says: we cry “Abba, Father.” “Abba” is Aramaic for “Father.” This verse says that we have received a spirit of son-placing. What the spirit of son-placing is is revealed in Rom. 8.23: It is that “we ourselves having the firstfruit of the Spirit, we also groan in ourselves awaiting son-placing, the redemption of our body.” It is not adoption, but the groaning we feel for the Lord’s return and his establishment of a kingdom of righteousness in this world (2 Pt. 3.13). The son-placing does not come until that kingdom is established and we are appointed to our place of responsibility in it – we will reign with Christ (2 Tim. 2.12). We do not have the son-placing yet, but the longing for that day. We will have it at the end of this age. That is what Paul says plainly in v. 23: at the redemption of our bodies, which comes at his return.

This brings me to one of my pet peeves. It is the notion that we are adopted by God. I want to say that I have decidedly not been adopted by God. I was born of God, (Jn. 3.5-6). I am his child or son by birth, the new birth. “Abba, Father!”

Those being led by the Spirit are sons, not children, of God. A child is led by his parents until he comes of age to be responsible for himself. Then he becomes a son, in these terms, though we do call our male children sons.

¹⁶The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children, ¹⁷but if children, heirs also, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.

When we are born again the “Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children.” If we are his children we will be his heirs at the right time. Paul adds, “if indeed we suffer with him.” That is, the son-placing has to do with maturity, when we are put into our place of responsibility in the kingdom. Those who endure with Christ will reign with him (2 Tim 2.12), and those who suffer with him will be glorified with him (Rom. 8.17). Suffering with him does not necessarily mean that we are persecuted because we are his, though that may take place, but also that whatever suffering we experience we see as unto him. God can use any kind of suffering to grow us in him. We accept the suffering as from him for his purposes. There are rewards in the kingdom, as we have emphasized already. Those who have lived faithful and obedient to God will find a reward, son-placing, a place of responsibility, in the kingdom, reigning with Christ. Those who have not will be saved, as 1 Cor. 3.15 makes clear, but will suffer loss, the loss of rewards. How important it is that we trust and obey.

¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy of comparison to the coming glory to be revealed to us.

Continuing with the matter of suffering, Paul says that our sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory. This reminds me of 2 Cor. 4.16-18:

Therefore we are not losing heart, but if indeed our outer man is wasting away, our inner man is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For the momentary light burden of our affliction is working for us an eternal weight of glory from hyperbole to hyperbole, ¹⁸we not looking at the things being seen, but the things not being seen. For the things being seen are temporary, but the things not being seen are eternal.

Our sufferings at the time seem heavy and hard, and indeed they are to us, but in the kingdom we will see that they are as nothing compared to the glory God has stored up. In our sufferings we feel our outer man wasting away as the body suffers or deteriorates. We don’t know how we can endure it. But just as the hard work an athlete goes through to prepare for competition, our sufferings are working something worthwhile, an eternal  weight of glory. As we endure, trusting in God and worshipping him in the midst of our troubles, we are storing up treasure in Heaven. Paul uses the word hyperbole in the Corinthian passage. The Greek word is the same, hyperbole. The word means going beyond, way beyond. Our word “hyperbole” is a poetic term meaning extreme exaggeration. We say we are so hungry we could eat a horse. That is gross exaggeration, but we understand it. God says that the weight of glory being stored up is from gross exaggeration to gross exaggeration, except that it is not a poetic untruth. It is literally true. We won’t  believe it. The suffering we feel now is temporary. The things we do not see that are being stored up are eternal. Trust and obey.

¹⁹For the earnest expectation of the creation is awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of the one having subjected it in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be set free from the slavery of corruption to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²²For we know that all the creation groans together and travails together until now, ²³but not only that, but even we ourselves having the firstfruit of the Spirit, we also groan in ourselves

Paul personifies the creation, which I take to mean everything created, saying that it is awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. In that sense it “knows” that it will not be released from the futility it feels now until “the revelation of the sons of God.” It is not willingly subject to futility, but because God so subjected it. Some think it was Adam who subjected it. I do not think that is a possibility. Adam was a fallen sinner and had no power to do such a thing. God subjected the creation until a remedy could be worked out, and the subjection is because of the fall into sin, but it was God’s doing, not Adam’s. The remedy is the coming of the Lord Jesus to die to redeem all who would trust in him, and his second coming to raise the dead and catch up the living and transforming their earthly bodies, the bodies “of our humiliation, to the body of his glory” (Phil. 3.21). The creation could not “be set free from the slavery of corruption to the freedom of the glory of the children of God” until redemption was worked out. He would not allow the creation to save itself, as we see in Gen. 11.3-4, a tower being built by sinful man to reach to the heavens, that is, to save itself. Only God can save.

Now the creation is groaning. We all feel that ourselves as we groan over the sin of the world, our own sins and sinful nature, our longing for the creation to be redeemed itself from its own turbulence. Where do tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, droughts, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters come from? Why do we have wars and rumors of war and crime and tyranny? Ultimately from sin. The world is fallen, “subjected to futility.” Futility means never reaching the goal. The goal is the kingdom of righteousness (2 Pt. 3.13), but the world can never reach that goal until redemption and the return of the world’s rightful Ruler. The world travails, trying to deliver that kingdom, but it cannot.

Why do we groan? Because we have the firstfruit of the Spirit. We know there is a remedy and we long for it. We groan for it.

awaiting son-placing, the redemption of our body.

We are back to son-placing. The thing we are waiting for and groaning for is our son-placing, finding our place in the righteous kingdom of God. The redemption of our body, now limited in what we can do and subject to disease, pain, and death, comes at that point of son-placing. The Lord Jesus will appear like lightning in the east (Mt. 24.27, Lk. 17.24), the dead in him will be raised, and they with those who are his and alive at his coming will be caught to meet him in the air, always to be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4.16-17). Then we will receive our son-placing, the place where we have longed to be. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

This 23rd verse of Rom. 8 is proof positive that the word son-placing does not refer to adoption. We are not adopted by God when we are born again. We are born of him. Our son-placing in the kingdom will come at the return of the Lord Jesus. Lord, hasten that day!

²⁴For we were saved in hope, but hope being seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? ²⁵But if we do not see what we hope for we wait through endurance.

We have hope. Our hope is not the world’s hope, just wishing for something, maybe wishing on a star, no assurance. Our hope is sure because it is based on what God, who cannot lie, has said. We do not see what we hope for, but we trust God that it is there and that we will see it in his time, and it will last forever.

²⁶But likewise the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings,

Those hurricane and tornado winds you hear are creation’s groanings! And it is not just that we groan. We have a helper in groaning. Rom. 8.26 reads. “But likewise the Spirit joins to help in our weakness, for we do not know the things we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings….” The groans are inexpressible by us, but the Holy Spirit knows what he is saying. The creation groans to be what God made it to be. We groan for the redemption of our bodies and our son-placing. God groans. He groans for his creation to be what he made it to be. A great deal of the groaning we feel is the groaning of the Holy Spirit within us. God did not create a fallen world, and he is in the process of gaining what he wanted to start with, a world in which righteousness dwells, with his people who are his sons and daughters who love him, and whom he loves. He, too, is groaning. How great is our God!

²⁷but the one searching the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, for according to God he intercedes for saints.

The groanings of the Spirit come out of his knowledge of the will of God. He is God. God searches the hearts of people and the Spirit knows what God sees in our hearts. He intercedes with groanings that we cannot express, but he knows what he is praying, but his expressions come as groanings for he knows the deep pain that creation, we, and God himself, feel at what is going on.

²⁸But we know that for those loving God, all things work together for good, for those being called according to purpose,

Now we come to one of the great statements of the Bible. It is a very instructive and comforting statements, but it needs to be used with understanding. I will say first that it is not to be used with someone who has just experienced the loss of a loved one or some other tragedy. That person needs arms around him or her and comforting words spoken. Later, or even well before the time of sorrow, the person should learn that all things work together for good for God’s people. At the time of sorrow there needs to be just compassion, understanding and love. “All things work together for good” is always true, but not always appropriate.

The instructive part of the statement is that indeed God does use everything in our lives for our good if we will let him. Sometimes when tragedy comes people become angry with God or even lose faith in him. That may be normal and the person should be helped to get over those feelings. The truth is that just as an athlete suffers in training to become prepared for his sport, as we mentioned earlier, so God uses our sufferings to mature us and strengthen us and develop faith in him. If we can yield to him in difficult times, or as soon as we can get over the worst of the pain, he will use it for those purposes. We all suffer in life, but God wants to use those sufferings to grow us up. Heb. 2.10 says that God used suffering to mature the Lord Jesus and Heb. 5.8 says that the Lord Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered. What? Wasn’t he the perfect, sinless Son of God? Why would he need to be matured and learn obedience? Because he was born as a human being like us. He went through everything we do, sin excepted, as he grew up:             Heb. 2.17-18: “Therefore he was obligated to be made like the brothers in all things, that he might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in the things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” He was able to fulfill his calling because he suffered, being matured and learning obedience. He knows what we go through from experience, not just because he is God and knows everything.

²⁹for those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, for him to be firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰But those he predestined, these he also called, and those he called, these he also justified, and those he justified, these he also glorified.

The matter of predestination has been a source of argument and division. Some believe that God predestines some to be saved and others to be lost. Let me say that I firmly believe that we all have freedom of choice. We choose to be saved or to reject the Lord’s offer of salvation. If that is true, what does the Lord mean here by predestination?

Predestination is for Christians. God predestines those who have been saved to be conformed to the image of his Son. That is his goal for us. I certainly cannot say that I have been conformed to the image of Christ. Far from it! But the Lord is at work through all the things we go through – “all things” – the things we learn from him, what his word says, what we learn from others who have gone on with the Lord, to conform us to the image of his Son. At the redemption of our bodies and the son-placing we will see a great outcome of his dealings with us.

God wants his Son to be the firstborn of many brothers, and sisters, I would say. We referred to Heb. 2.10: “For it was fitting for him, because of whom are all things and through whom are all things, having brought many sons to glory, to mature the originator of their salvation through sufferings.” He is bringing us to glory, to conformity to his Son. That is predestination.

Those whom he predestined, Christians, he called and justified, and he is in the process of bringing us to glory. [Note: Some might notice that Heb. 2.10 says “having brought many sons to glory,” which implies that we have already come to glory. The Greek for “having brought” is in the aorist tense, basically a past tense, but also sometimes implying completeness of things still future. It is God seeing what he will do as having already been accomplished. After all, God is not limited by time. He is omnipresent, in time as well as in location.]

What is glory? That is a good question. I would take it here as the full realization of all that God has planned for himself and his people. The glory is all God’s, but he shares it with us in his kingdom.

³¹What then will we say to these things? If God be for us who is against us? ³²He who did not even spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him give us all things?

Paul has written a lot in chapters 6-8. “What then will we say to these things?” The outcome is, “If God be for us who is against us?” It does not matter in a sense what people do to us or what Satan tries to do to us. God will see us through it all and bring us to glory. We are not living for this world, but for his kingdom. If he did not spare even his own Son for our benefit, he will give us all things, a blessed life with him now and eternity with him in Heaven. We can trust him at all times in all things to bring us through. Is. 43.1-2 says,

Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and the flame will not scorch you.

My old friend Norman Grubb said of some missionaries who had been martyred, “It won’t hurt them.” Of course not. Their death was the doorway to Heaven. They went from an evil world into the very visible presence of the Lord.

Mt. 5.12 says, “Rejoice and be glad, for much is your reward in the heavens.” We read in 1 Jn. 4.4, “… greater is the one in you than the one in the world.” If we trust and obey we cannot lose.”

³³Who will bring a charge against God’s elect, God, the one justifying? ³⁴Who is the one condemning, Christ Jesus, the one having died?

I like to paraphrase this verse in this way: “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect, God? He is the one justifying? Who is the one condemning, Christ Jesus? He is the one having died?” The one justifying us will not bring a charge against us. He has just acquitted us. The one who died for us will not condemn us.

But rather having been raised up, who also is at the right hand of God, who also is interceding for us.

This one who died for us has been raised from the dead and gives us life. Why would he then turn around and condemn us? He is at the right hand of God interceding for us. Is he then going to condemn the ones he is interceding for? Nonsense! “If God be for us who is against us?” No one!

³⁵Who will separate us from the love of Christ, tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶As it has been written, ”For your sake we are being put to death all the day; we are regarded as sheep for slaughter” [Ps. 44.22]. ³⁷But in all these things we are more than overcomers through the one having loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things being present nor things coming nor powers ³⁹nor height nor depth nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Who will separate us from this God who has justified us and this Christ who has died for us? Paul lists all the troubles we can go through in this life. He went through these things himself. Did he let them get him down? Did he let them separate him from God? He may have been tempted to, as we sometimes are, but no, he did not let them separate him from God. He kept faith with him. He felt what the psalmist said in Ps. 44.22. He felt put to death all day long, and he highlights this all through 2 Corinthians (see my article Life out of Death in 2 Corinthians, available on my web site at no cost, www.tomadcox.com). How could he do this? Because he knew that out of death comes resurrection life. Resurrection life is what we desperately need, but the only way to get it is to die. Paul says in 1 Cor. 15.31 that he dies daily. We saw in our study of Rom. 6 that we have already been crucified with Christ. It is a settled issue. But we find that the sinful flesh nature in us, the old man, keeps trying to raise his ugly head. So Paul says here that “we are being put to death all the day.” There is a crisis – having been crucified with Christ – and there is a process – living that out day by day. As the Lord Jesus himself said, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9.23). Sometimes we just get down and feel dead, but then the Lord revives us as we look to him and we have a fresh influx of resurrection life, life out of death.

Nothing can “separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing! God is, not just has, love. His love is sure and eternal. Rest in that assurance.

So Paul answers his question, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is simply Christ living in us as we walk in the Spirit.

9. Now we come to a matter near to the heart of Paul, a matter of great sorrow to him, his “kinsmen according to flesh,” the Jewish people who rejected their Messiah. This section of Romans covers three chapters, 9-11.

I speak truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, ²that great sorrow is in me and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³For I was wishing I myself to be accursed from Christ on behalf of my brothers, my kinsmen according to flesh, ⁴who are Israelites, whose is the son-placing and the glory and the covenants and the law-giving and the service and the promises, ⁵whose are the fathers and from whom is the Christ according to flesh, the one being over all, God blessed into the ages. Amen.

This statement shows the deep love of Paul for God and his people, the Jews, and his heartbreak at their rejection of the Lord Jesus. It may strike us as unbelievable that he would wish hell on himself for the sake of his kinsmen. Oh, his deep despair at their failure to own their Messiah and fulfill God’s plan for them.

They are the Israelites. The first use of the word “Israel” comes in Gen. 32.28, when Jacob wrestled with “a man” (v. 24). It turns out he was wrestling with God, and he prevailed. V. 28 says, “And he [the man] said, ‘Your name will be called Jacob no more, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.’” The word “Israel” means “He who strives with God” or “God strives.” Who else has ever striven with God and prevailed? These were a special people, chosen by God to be his own possession: “Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you will be my own possession from among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, ⁶and you will be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19.5-6); “’And they will be mine,’ says I AM of hosts, ‘my own possession, in the day that I make, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him’” (Mal. 3.17). These were not just any people. They were, and are, Israelites.

Theirs is the son-placing, those who should have a place of responsibility in God’s kingdom, but they rejected it. Whose is the glory, those who should have been glorified after being foreknown, predestined, and conformed to the image of his Son, but they rejected it. Whose are the covenants, the special relationship made with them by God, but they rejected it. Whose is the law-giving, God’s “tutor to Christ” (Gal. 3.24), but they rejected him. Whose is the service, the system of temple worship that God gave them, but they made it ritual and ceremony instead of heart worship. Whose were the promises, the inheritance of their land in perpetuity, but they disobeyed and were driven into exile and to scattering over all of the earth.  Whose are the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who founded this holy nation, but they did not walk in the steps of the fathers. And from whom is the Christ according to flesh, but they took him outside the camp and crucified him. Oh, the sorrow of Paul at the response of the Jews to their Messiah.

⁶But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all those from Israel are Israel. ⁷Not because they are seed of Abraham are they all children, but “In Isaac your seed will be called” [Gen. 21.1]. ⁸That is, not these children of flesh are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as seed. For the word of promise is this, “According to this time I will come and there will be to Sarah a son” [Gen. 18.10, 14].

Paul explains that the word of God did not fail even though most of Israel failed. Not every Israelite by physical birth is of the Israel of God (Gal. 6.16). First, the seed of Abraham making up Israel are descended through Isaac. Abraham, doubting God, had a son by Sarah’s maid Hagar, Ishmael. The seed of Abraham as Israel is not counted through Ishmael, but only those descended from Isaac, as Gen 21.1 states. Second, the children of God are children of promise, God’s promise to Abraham that he would have a son by a miraculous birth. These are Abraham’s seed.

¹⁰But not only this, but also Rebecca, having conception of twins by one man, our father Isaac, ¹¹for they, not yet having been born or having done anything good or bad, so that the purpose of God according to election might remain, ¹²not of works, but of the one calling, it was said to her, “The greater will serve the lesser” [Gen. 25.23], ¹³as it has been written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” [Mal. 1.2-3]. ¹⁴What then will we say? Is there injustice with God? No. Let it not be!

In addition, the seed of Abraham goes through Jacob, not his twin brother Esau. In ancient Israel the firstborn son of a family was considered the head of the family after the passing of the father. He would inherit a double portion. That is, if there were two sons, the older would inherit two-thirds of the family wealth and the younger, one-third, and so on. But in this case, God chose Jacob, the younger, to be the heir. So Paul asks, “Is there injustice with God?” He gives an emphatic no, then goes on to explain.

¹⁵For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I may have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I may have compassion” [Ex. 33.19]. ¹⁶So then it is not of the one desiring nor of the one running, but of God showing mercy. ¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “I raised you up for this itself, so that I might show in you my power and that my name should be declared in all the earth” [Ex. 9.16]. ¹⁸So then he has mercy on whom he desires, but he hardens whom he desires.

He explains that God does what he wants to do! He has mercy on whom he will have mercy and compassion on whom he will have compassion. It is not what someone wants or what someone is running after, but what God wants. Then he gives the example of Pharaoh.  God chose him to be hardened. This sounds as though God is not fair. This passage has also led to the belief of some, perhaps many, that God predestined who will be saved and who will be lost. I do not believe this for an instant.

Think back to Rom. 8.29. It says, “… for those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” As I stated there, predestination is for Christians. I believe that the foreknowledge of God has a great deal to do with this question. God knows who will accept him and who will reject him and makes his plans accordingly. He does not predestine anyone to be lost, but he foreknows who will be lost. They have free will and choose to reject God. He knew that Pharaoh would reject him and planned accordingly. We who are saved have free will and we choose to accept him. He predestines us to be conformed to the image of his Son.

¹⁹Therefore you will say to me, “Why then does he still find fault? For who is resisting his will?”

Some might ask such a question. How can God find fault when he determines some to have mercy and some not? The answer is what we have just been saying. Foreknowledge. God is “not … willing any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” (2 Pt. 3.9). People choose not to repent, and thus to perish. God knows this and plans accordingly.

²⁰O man, who are you, the one answering against God? Will the thing formed say to the one having formed it, “Why did you make me so?” No. ²¹Or does the potter not have authority over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honor, but one for dishonor?

We have no more right to answer against God than a lump of clay. We do have a right to talk to God. We have all asked him why in a difficult situation. Sometimes we ask him in anger against him. Usually he does not tell us why. He has purpose in all that he does and we must accept that and move on. Remember Rom. 8.28. There are things in my own life that I cannot understand and would give anything to change, but I trust God that he knows what he is doing and ”we will understand it better by and by.”

²²But if God, desiring to show wrath and to make known his power, bore with much longsuffering [2 Pt. 3.9] vessels of dishonor fitted for destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, ²⁴whom he also called, us, not only from Jews, but also from Gentiles.

God reveals his wrath ahead of time. He sent a great flood that destroyed the wicked more than 3500 years ago. He had wrath on Pharaoh about 3500 years ago. We have no justification for not knowing about the wrath of God. We read in 1 Thess. 5.3, “When they might say, ‘Peace and security,’ sudden destruction comes on them” like labor pains on a woman. As we saw earlier, the Lord Jesus said that he would come like lightning, suddenly (Mt. 24.27, Lk. 17.24). In Rev. 22.7 he says that he will come quickly. Some think that means “soon.” I don’t know whether it will be soon or not, but I know it will be quick when it occurs. No warning. A flash of lightning. People ought to know that judgment is coming. They have no excuse.

Not only has he made known sudden destruction, but he will “make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,” and he has made this known in his word.

These three chapters are about the Jews. Those Jews who reject their Messiah will know sudden destruction. Those Jews who own their Messiah will know the glory. But not the Jews only. Gentiles who turn to the Lord will know salvation and ultimately the glory. Yes, God called the Jews first, but his eternal intention has been to include the Gentiles, and indeed, he intended for the Jews to make the good news known to the Gentiles and to include them. Most did not, but remember that all the first Christians were Jews, including Paul, that great apostle and evangelist to the Gentiles. And Peter was the first to take the good news to the Gentiles (Acts 10, 15.7). Read Eph. 2.11-22 in this regard.

²⁵As also in Hosea he says, “I will call those not my people, my people, and her not having been loved, having been loved, ²⁶and it will be in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,´ there they will be called sons of the living God” [Hos. 2.23].

The Gentiles were not God’s people, but now those Gentiles who trust in Christ are God’s people. He loves us. We are sons and daughters of the living God.

²⁷But Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved, ²⁸for the Lord will act on his word on the earth, completing and cutting short” [Is. 10.22-23]. ²⁹And as Isaiah foretold, “If the Lord of hosts did not leave us seed, we had become like Sodom and had been made like Gomorrah” [Is. 1.9].

But we come back to the Jews. Isaiah says that no matter how many Jews there may be, a remnant will be saved. It is not my place, or anyone’s except God, to say who is saved and who is not. There were many Jews in the Old Testament days who turned way from God to idols or just to the world and God judged them. There were several judgments, over and over. The great ones were the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel and the deportation by the Assyrians, and the destruction of Judah by the Babylonians and exile. Some Jews returned to the promised land and reestablished the nation of Israel, but they knew constant fighting until their conquest by Rome in 163 B.C., which brought a measure of peace. Then their Messiah came and they rejected him and sent him to the cross. Then they persecuted the church. Finally judgment fell. They rebelled against Rome in A.D. 66. Rome besieged Jerusalem, and in A.D. 70 they destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and killed or deported many Jews. Many were taken to Rome and marched through the streets and put into slavery. In A.D. 132-135 the Jews left in the promised land rebelled again and Rome deported all Jews and made it illegal for a Jew to live in the land. They were scattered to the winds, as it is today.

There is a final judgment coming, recorded in Zech. 12-14, Two thirds of Jews will be killed. Jerusalem will be all but destroyed, houses plundered, women ravished, half the remaining people exiled. Isaiah, prophesying, cries out, “If the Lord of hosts did not leave us seed, we had become like Sodom and had been made like Gomorrah”[Is. 1.9].

But there will also be salvation. Isaiah prophesies, “If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved, ²⁸for the Lord will act on his word on the earth, completing and cutting short” [Is. 1.9]. There will be a remnant. When this day comes, the Lord will complete his work and cut it short (see Mt. 24.22). Zech. 12.10 says,

And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplication, and they will look on me whom they have pierced, and they will mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

Yes, those faithful Jews who have been true to God the best they knew, whose hearts were right (Rom. 10.2 says they have a zeal, but not according to knowledge) will recognize the Lord Jesus when he comes. They will mourn for how they rejected him, but they will own him as their Messiah. Zech. 14.4 says that the Lord’s feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Their Messiah will have come back and saved them.

³⁰What then will we say? That Gentiles not pursuing righteousness laid hold of righteousness, but righteousness which is from faith, ³¹but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at the law. ³²Because of what? Because not from faith, but as from works. They stumbled over the stone of stumbling, ³³as it has been written, “Look, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and the one having faith in him will not be put to shame” [Is. 28.16].

What then will we say? The Gentiles as a whole were not pursuing righteousness, though there must have been some who did. They were pagan, serving false gods or no gods. Their religion, if they had any, allowed them to live any way they please as long as they paid their regards to the god. The mythical gods of the Greeks and Romans were ungodly themselves! Yet some of the Gentiles laid hold of righteousness. They heard the good news and accepted it. They trusted in Christ and served him in holiness and godliness. Why did they discover the Lord when the Jews did not? Because they, lawless people, had faith, and salvation is by faith, not law. As we have been seeing, all the law can do is condemn because we cannot keep it. Faith saves.

But Israel was so bound to the law, not understanding that it was a tutor to their Messiah (Gal. 3.24), tried their best to keep it to the letter, or gave up in despair. They could never arrive at righteousness in that way, but only at failure.

God gave them a stone, the Rock of ages, the Lord Jesus from whom the water of the Holy Spirit flowed (Ex. 17.6), and they stumbled over it. They were offended by it, the offense of the cross (Gal. 5.11). They could not accept a Messiah who died, who was crucified. He had to be a mighty warrior who would deliver them from Rome and all their enemies and make them the head and not the tail (Dt. 28.13). They could not see that life comes out of death, the death of the old man, the flesh, and faith in the one who died and rose up from the dead with eternal life. But the one putting faith in that stone of stumbling and rock of offense “will not be put to shame”[Is. 28.16]. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

10. Brothers, indeed the desire of my heart and the supplication to God for them is for salvation. ²For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to full knowledge. ³For not recognizing the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to the righteousness of God. ⁴For Christ is the end of law for righteousness to everyone having faith.

Paul returns to his thoughts at the beginning of chapter 9, his deep desire for the Jews to be saved. He pleads with God for their salvation. He knows that they have a zeal for God, but he says it is not according to knowledge. They do not see that righteousness comes from God, but think they can gain salvation by keeping the law. Thus they rejected the righteousness of God revealed by the Lord Jesus: “Repent” (Mt. 4.17); “Your faith has saved you” (Lk. 7.50). Then Paul writes, “For Christ is the end of law for righteousness to everyone having faith.” The end of something can mean that it has come to an end, such as a sports game. The clock has run out. Or it can mean the goal of something. I do not think the law matters to those who keep it because they are obedient to God, but I also do not think it has ended (1 Tim. 1.9). It is for those who do not keep it. As we have seen, the law is a tutor unto Christ (Gal 3.24). Christ is the goal of the law. The law is not designed to save us, but to show that it cannot save us because we cannot keep it. Christ is the one who saves us as we repent and have faith.

⁵For Moses writes of the righteousness that is from the law, “The man having done these things will live by them” [Lev. 18.5].

That is, if one tries to gain righteousness by keeping the law, he must keep it perfectly.

⁶But the righteousness from faith speaks thus, “You should not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into Heaven,’ that is, to bring Christ down? ⁷Or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss’ [Dt. 30.12-13], that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.’”

Trying to be saved by keeping the law is works, salvation by works. But we are not saved by works, but by grace through faith (Eph. 2.9). Paul says here that the one trying to be saved by his works is like someone trying to go up to Heaven to bring Christ down, or to descend into the abyss to bring Christ up from the dead. That is impossible, of course. One sin condemns us. We can never save ourselves. We can never do enough good works to earn salvation.

I want to say a word here about the abyss. There is a lot of confusion over the matter of hades and hell. A great error of the KJV is its translation of Mt. 16.18 when it speaks of “the gates of hell.” The Greek word is hades. Hades and hell are not the same. Hades is the grave and death and the prison of the lost dead awaiting final judgment, the great white throne judgment (2 Pt. 2.4, where the Greek tartarus is hades, not hell, 2 Pt. 2.9, Jude 6, Rev. 20.11-14). There is no one in hell at this moment. The first inhabitants of hell will be the antichrist and his false prophet (Rev. 19.20). The next people in hell will be the goat Gentiles of Mt. 25.41. Satan will be bound in hades at the return of Christ (Rev. 20.2-3) and will be there for a thousand years, the millennial reign of Christ. He will be cast into hell after he is released from hades and raised up for the final rebellion (Rev. 20.10). Hades and the abyss are the same thing, and the same as sheol in the Old Testament. There is no word for “hell” in the Old Testament. The statement here about descending into the abyss, hades, to bring Christ up from the dead, refers to death and the grave. For a fuller treatment of this topic see my booklet, Hades, Hell, Paradise, and Heaven, available at no cost on my website, www.tomadcox.com).

⁸But what does it say? “The speaking is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” [Dt. 30.14], that is, the speaking of faith which we are preaching, ⁹that if you should confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, ¹⁰for with the heart one has faith into righteousness, but with the mouth one confesses into salvation.

We do not have to ascend to Heaven to bring Christ down. We do not have to descend into the abyss to bring him up. The words, from a sincere heart, that bring Christ are in our mouths and in our hearts. It is a heart matter, faith and confession.

¹¹For the Scripture says, “Everyone having faith in him will not be put to shame” [Is. 28.16]. ¹²For there is no difference of Jew and Greek, for the same Lord of all is rich toward all those calling on him, for “everyone who might call on the name of the Lord will be saved” [Joel 2.32].

Paul said in Rom. 9.24-26 that salvation is not a matter of Jew and Gentile. He says here that it is a matter of faith and confession. “Everyone having faith in him will not be put to shame.” “Everyone who might call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Paul says in 1 Cor. 10.32 that there are three kinds of people in the world, Jews, Gentiles, and the church of God. When a Jew trusts Christ, in a sense he is no longer a Jew, but a Christian. When a Gentile trusts Christ, in a sense he is no longer a Gentile, but a Christian.

¹⁴How then could they call on him whom they did not believe? But how could they have faith in him of whom they did not hear? But how could they hear without one preaching? ¹⁵But how could they preach if they were not sent? As it has been written, “How beautiful the feet of those proclaiming good news of good things” [Is. 52.7].

This is a challenge to Christians to share the good news far and wide, to tell everyone about salvation by faith in Christ and confession of his name. We are too prone to leave evangelism to preachers and “official evangelists.” Yes, they are needed, as Paul says here, quoting Is. 52.7, but we are all witnesses. It is not a matter of whether or not we are witnesses, but whether we are we good or bad witnesses. Do we tell people about Christ, or do we keep our mouths shut? Acts 8.1-4 says that after the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution that followed, the church was scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. All of them went about proclaiming the good news. All of them, not the apostles. We are all to proclaim the good news.

¹⁶But not all listened to the good news, for Isaiah says, “Lord, who believed our report?” [Is. 53.1] ¹⁷So faith is from hearing, but hearing through a speaking of Christ.

The good news was proclaimed, by Isaiah and other prophets, “But not all listened to the good news,” so much so that Isaiah asked, “Lord, who believed our report?” Then Paul adds that “faith is from hearing but hearing through a speaking of Christ.” I think this is an important statement (I think all the Bible is!). Paul emphasizes the need for us to proclaim the good news, whether it is by preaching or by a simple testimony given by any of us. If we don’t preach and witness no one can hear the good news. People don’t get the good news by osmosis. We have to tell them.

There is another way in which this statement is important. We are told by some in these days that if you want something, just believe God for it and you will get it. Have faith and it is yours. But that is not what this verse says. It says that faith comes by “hearing, but hearing through a speaking of Christ.” That is, faith is not just believing anything we want to believe, but believing what God says. If God does not say anything, we cannot believe. Only when God tells us something can we believe it. The Bible is full of things God has said and we can count on those things, but he has not promised to give us just anything we ask for.

A good example of this is found in James 5.15: “… and the prayer of faith will heal the one being sick and the Lord will raise him up….” Some say that all we have to do is anoint a sick person with oil and pray for him and he will be healed. But the passage does not say that. It says that “the prayer of faith will heal the one being sick.” Where does faith come from? From something God says. If God says he will heal the sick person, then we can count on it, but if he does not speak in the situation, we have to leave it with him. He may or may not heal the person. I think that we must admit that many a person we have prayed for, even anointed with oil, has died. Did God lie? Did he fail? No, if he did not say he would heal him so that we could pray the prayer of faith, we must leave it with him. Faith comes by “hearing, but hearing through a speaking of Christ.” Did Christ speak in a situation?

¹⁸But I say, did they not hear? No, they did hear. Indeed rather, “Into all the earth their voice went out, and to the ends of the inhabited earth, their speakings” [Ps. 19.4]. But I say, did Israel not know? No, they did know. First Moses says, “I will provoke you to jealously by those not a nation. By a nation without understanding I will anger you” [Dt. 32.21]. ²⁰But Isaiah is very bold and says, “I was found by those not seeking me; I became manifest to those not asking after me” [Is. 65.1]. ²¹But to Israel he says, “All the day I stretched out my hands to a people disobeying and contradicting” [Is. 65.2].

Getting back to the Jews’ rejection of Christ, let us say that they did hear: “Into all the earth their voice went out, and to the ends of the inhabited earth, their speakings”[Ps. 19.4]. Their speakings – God did speak through his prophets. Did Israel not know what God said? They did know. Moses had prophesied that Israel would turn away from God to serve idols, which they did. So, Moses said God would “provoke you to jealously by those not a nation. By a nation without understanding I will anger you.” I believe that nation is the Gentiles. The blessing of God’s Gentile people who turn to Christ is intended, for one thing, to provoke the Jews to jealousy and anger in an effort to turn the Jews back to him. So far that has not taken place fully, though many Jews are turning to Christ, and in the end there will be the remnant.

Isaiah prophesies, “I was found by those not seeking me; I became manifest to those not asking after me.” The Gentiles were not looking for a Messiah. They were happily (?) pagan. But when Peter and Paul took the good news to the Gentiles, many did respond. In time the church became almost entirely Gentile. The Jews said no to the Lord Jesus.

I am sure Paul wrote v. 21 with tears: “But to Israel he says, ‘All the day I stretched out my hands to a people disobeying and contradicting.’” But the Jews said no.

11. I say then, did God reject his own people? No. Let it not be! For I, too, am an Israelite, from Abraham’s seed, of the tribe of Benjamin. ²God did not reject his people whom he foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in Elijah as he pleads with God against Israel, ³Lord, “they killed your prophets, they tore down your altars with the sword, and I alone was left, and they are seeking my life” [1 Kings 19.10, 14]. ⁴But what is the reply to him? “I left to myself seven thousand men who did not bow a knee to Baal” [1 Kings 19.18]. ⁵Thus then in the present time also there has been a remnant according to election of grace,

What Paul has just written raises the question, “… did God reject his own people?” But he gives an emphatic, “No. Let it not be!” He gives as evidence that he himself is a Jew, “an Israelite, from Abraham’s seed, of the tribe of Benjamin.” He, Paul, a Jew, has not been rejected. Elijah prayed against Israel in 1 Kings 19.10 and 14 as though he is asking God to reject them. But God answered him, “I left to myself seven thousand men who did not bow a knee to Baal.” Those seven thousand have not been rejected. Instead of God rejecting Israel, they rejected him. Paul and the other Jews who have received Christ are a remnant of Jews  “according to election of grace” who are faithful.

⁶but if by grace, no longer from works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. ⁷What then? What Israel is seeking, this it did not obtain, but the elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, ⁸as it has been written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes not to see and ears not to hear to this present day” [Dt. 29.4]. ⁹And David says, “Let their table be for a snare and for a trap and for a stumbling block and for a retribution to them. ¹⁰Let their eyes be darkened not to see and their back bent forever” [Ps. 69.22-23].

The Jews historically had sought righteousness by works, by keeping the law. But if it is by grace, it is not by works, or grace would not be grace, a free gift, something not earned. The Jews did not gain righteousness by works, but the elect, those God foreknew would receive Christ, did obtain it, and Paul has already said that they were not even seeking it (9.30). Those Jews who rejected Christ were hardened. The Greek word for “hardened” here comes from a root meaning “stone.” They were hard as rocks. We see this in the hatred of the Lord Jesus that led the Jews to send him to a cross. “Crucify him.” “We will not have this one to reign over us” (Lk. 19.14).

Their hardness is seen in what Moses said in Deuteronomy, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes not to see and ears not to hear to this present day.” And David said, “Let their table be for a snare and for a trap and for a stumbling block and for a retribution to them. ¹⁰Let their eyes be darkened not to see and their back bent forever.” This hardening of people is what is called judicial blindness. We see this in Is. 6.9-10, quoted in Mt. 13.14-15, Mk. 4.12, Lk. 8.10). It is possible for people to resist God to the point that they are so hardened that they are no longer able to hear from him. We see the same thing is seen in 1 Tim 4.2: “seared in their own conscience,” so hardened as to be unable to feel conviction. This is an incredibly dangerous place to be. Virtually condemned by God while still alive. Do not go there.

¹¹I say then, did they stumble that they might fall? No. Let it not be! But their trespass is salvation to the Gentiles, to make them jealous.

This seems to apply to Jews as a whole, some stumbling and some falling. Those who stumble in this statement appear to be those who sin, as we all do, but can still be saved. Falling seems to indicate being lost forever, though it is not my place, or anyone’s, to say who is condemned and who is saved. That is God’s prerogative. But we do know that there are people who are condemned. Paul says again, “No. Let it not be!” As a famous comedienne said, “I am unanimous in this!” Paul seems to be hoping that the stumbling Jews will be made jealous by the blessing of salvation to the church and repent themselves.

¹²But if their trespass is riches of the world and their failure riches of Gentiles, how much more their fullness.

There are Jews who have received Christ. We saw this earlier in that all the first Christians were Jews, including Paul. There are many Jews turning to the Lord now. God promises that there will a remnant at the end of this age. If their trespass, rejecting the Lord Jesus, is such riches, what will their fullness be? Imagine the glory when the Lord returns, establishes his kingdom in Jerusalem as King of the Jews, and brings in a thousand years of righteousness, and then such an eternity! Praises!

¹³But I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch therefore as I am an apostle of Gentiles I glorify my ministry, ¹⁴if somehow I will provoke to jealousy my flesh and will save some of them.

Paul is writing this letter to Gentiles in Rome. He tells them that he is glorifying his ministry, not to bring glory to himself, but to provoke to jealousy his flesh, that is, Jews in the flesh, as he wants to save some of them. It is exciting to see God at work saving people and blessing them. Oh, that Jews would see this and turn to the Lord. That is still true in this day.

Let me just say here that there has been much hatred of Jews and persecution by self-proclaimed Christians. How does this provoke Jews to jealousy and bring them to the Lord. What a travesty! God have mercy. May we show love and kindness to God’s ancient people, pray for them, and witness where possible, and even support ministries that seek to help Jews and lead them to the Lord.

¹⁵For if their setting aside is reconciliation of the world, what will be the acceptance if not life from the dead? ¹⁶But if the firstfruit is holy, the lump also, and if the root is holy, so also the branches.

In the first verse of this chapter I have translated, “Did God reject his own people?’ Here in v. 15 I have translated, “setting aside.” Some versions translate both as “reject,” but the two words are different in Greek. The word “rejects” gives the idea of casting them out finally. Some believe that God is through with the Jews forever. One of my professors believed that, and I understand that he taught that at a well-known Baptist local church. In light of Zech. 12 I cannot see how anyone could believe that. There will be a remnant at the end and the Jews will live in their land forever, if I understand the Bible (Josh. 14.9).

The word for “setting aside” is not a final rejection, but a temporary setting aside. The Jews rejected the Lord, so the apostles and evangelists turned to the Gentiles. God is now about taking from the Gentiles a people for his name (Acts 15.14). He has set the Jews aside for a while, though he still welcomes any Jew who will come to him, but he will take them up again in his time.

And “what will be the acceptance if not life from the dead?” The Jews are now as a dead people spiritually. They have rejected their Messiah. Many are atheists. But God will raise from spiritual death those who turn to him, now and when they look on the face of him whom they have pierced (as we all have) and mourn (Zech. 12.10), and enter the fountain for sin and impurity for the house of David (Zech. 13.1).

“But if the firstfruit is holy, the lump also, and if the root is holy, so also the branches.” What is the firstfruit in this verse? We might think of the festival of firstfruits of Lev. 23.9-14, but that is not the case here. This refers to the founding fathers, the firstfruit of Israel,  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, especially Abraham. They were holy men, set apart by God to found his people. If they were holy, so is the lump, he nation of Israel. It is true that there was much wickedness, idolatry, and sin in Israel, but they were nonetheless holy in the sense of being set apart for God. They did not always live as set apart for God, though neither do we. We as Christians are holy, set apart for God, but we sometimes do not live as though we are. But the firstfruit was set apart for God and so was Israel.

It is the same with the root and the branches. Abraham and the founders are the root. The Israelites

are the branches. Both were set apart for God. It is of interest that the Lord Jesus is also a branch, the Branch (Is. 11, Jer. 23.5-6, Zech. 3.8-10). He of all is set apart for God and he alone is fully holy, not just in being set apart, but in living a completely holy life, a sinless life of full obedience to his Father.

¹⁷But if some of the branches were broken off, but you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and you became a fellow partaker of the of the root of the fatness of the olive tree,

Many Jews were unfaithful to God, including the leaders of Israel who rejected their Messiah and sent him to the cross. They would be the branches broken off of the tree. But the bringing in of the Gentiles, of a wild olive tree, was a grafting in of them into the tree. They became fellow partakers “of the of the root of the fatness of the olive tree.” Fat and fatness in the Bible are interesting. In this day of obesity and diets we do not think very well of fat, but in the Bible fatness is a good thing. It usually refers to fullness (Gen. 45.18, for example). The Israel of God (Gal. 6.16) is a cultivated olive tree (v. 24). Eph. 2.11-22 is a beautiful description of the grafting in of the wild olive branches, the Gentiles. We are welcome to partake of the fatness of the olive tree. Praises!

It is instructive that this tree is an olive tree. The olive was a staple in Israel. Their oil was olive oil. The Garden of Gethsemane was an olive grove, the Mount of Olives. Oil in the Bible is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. The priests and kings of Israel were anointed with olive oil, symbolic of the Holy Spirit empowering them to discharge their duties. The Lord Jesus went to Gethsemane to pray before his crucifixion. “Gethsemane” means “oil press,” the place where the olives were pressed out to release their oil. Our blessed Lord Jesus went through the olive press of the cross to enable him to pour out the oil of the Holy Spirit on his people (Acts 2.33 and 38), including the Gentiles (Acts 10.45).

¹⁸do not boast against the branches, but if you boast against them, you do not bear the root, but the root you.

“Salvation is from the Jews” (Jn. 4.22). They were the means though which God sent salvation into this wicked world. Be thankful for them. Don’t boast against them, as though you were something great and they are not. You and I did not make the way for them, but they for us.

¹⁹You will say then, branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. ²⁰Rightly. They were broken off in unbelief, but you stand by faith.

They were not broken off that you might be grafted in. They were well broken off because they were not faithful to God. You were not grafted in because you were something great. You were not grafted in by grace because you had faith. You stand by faith, and you can turn away from God as they did. Continue in faith.

Don’t be high minded, but fear.

“Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16.18). “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Prov. 3.34 LXX, the Greek Old Testament), James 4.6, 1Pt. 5.5). Pride is perhaps the most dangerous temptation. It was what gave rise to Satan’s rebellion that brought the temptation that felled Adam and Eve in the Garden. Fear pride. Run from pride. Be humble. The truth is that all of us are nothing before God, no matter how strong or smart or talented we are. Our strength and intelligence and talent were given to us by God (Jn. 3.27, 1 Cor. 4.7, James 1.17). It is all a gift of grace. Be humbly grateful.

²¹For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. ²²See therefore God’s kindness and severity, severity indeed on those having fallen, but on you God’s kindness, if you remain in the kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.

God did not spare the natural branches because they turned away from him, and he will not spare us either. This statement raises the question of losing salvation. I am of the persuasion that once we are saved we are always saved (1 Cor. 3.15), but there are those who believe that salvation can be lost. Do not take the chance. God can be very severe, as the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians and the exile of Judea by Babylonia show, and the deportation of all Jews from their land by Rome in A.D. 135, scattered all over the world.

²³But they also, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. ²⁴For if you were cut off from a wild olive tree according to nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more these, the branches according to nature, will be grafted into their own olive tree?

If the unfaithful turn back to God, he will graft them back in. We see this in our day when many Jews are trusting in their Messiah Jesus, and the world will see in the end of this age at the return of the Lord.

³⁵For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of this mystery, that you may not be wise in yourselves, that a hardening in part has come onto Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in,

This is a weighty passage of Scripture. Paul starts with the word “mystery.” A mystery to us is something that we know about, but do not know how to solve. Murder mysteries are very popular in our society. Someone has been killed, but the murderer is not known. The mystery is solved by clues and clever hunches and some of what the world calls luck. But a mystery of God in something we do not know about at all until God reveals it. There are numerous mysteries in the New Testament: the mystery of the kingdom, of not all sleeping, but some being changed, of summing up all things in Christ, of Christ, of marriage as a picture of Christ and the church, of the good news, of lawlessness, of the faith, of godliness, of God, of Babylon, and of the woman. You can read about all of these in my booklet “Mystery” in the New Testament, available at no cost on my web site www.tomadcox.com.

Here the mystery “that a hardening in part has come onto Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” No one ever knew or even thought of such a thing as God hardening his people “until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” The Jews knew they were the chosen people of God, apparently were proud of it (“a haughty spirit goes before destruction”), and looked down on Gentiles and those of mixed blood (Jn. 4.8 – Samaritans were of mixed Jewish and Gentile blood). I do not know that this mystery has been fully understood as to why God would use such a method, but we now know that he did harden some to bring in others.

²⁶and so all Israel will be saved,

“All Israel will be saved.” Does this mean that every Jew, even the most sinful of all, will be saved in the end? I knew someone many years ago who believed that. Will Judas be saved? I cannot answer these questions. It would seem more likely to me that it means that God will save the nation of Israel, even as we see it today, though still in unbelief. This is still something of our kind of mystery, like a murder mystery, to me. God has revealed the mystery, but I do not know how to solve it. See Dt. 29.29.

as it has been written, “The one delivering will come from Zion. He will turn ungodliness from Jacob, ²⁷and this is a covenant from me to them” [Is. 59.20-21a] when I will take away their sins.

“The one delivering [who] will come from Zion” is the Lord Jesus. This quote is from Is. 59.20, which says, “And a Deliverer will come to Zion and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob….” Here Paul quotes it “from Zion.” Zion is a hill in Jerusalem where David’s palace is believed to have been. It was called the city of David in the Old Testament. I believe that Zion in the New Testament refers to the church.

Mt. 21.5 says, “Say to the daughter of Zion, [Is. 62.11] ‘Look! your King is coming to you, meek and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the son of a donkey'” [Zech 9.9]. This says to me that the first coming of the Lord is the coming “to Zion.” Jn. 12.15 agrees. I believe Heb. 12.25 says the same thing: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angelsin festal assembly, and to the church of the firstborn enrolled in the heavens….” Mount Zion, the church of the firstborn ones. Rev. 14.1 says, “And I saw, and behold, the little Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads.” I believe this is a vision of the overcomers of the church, raptured to Heaven before the great tribulation (see Rev. 12.1-2, 5, where the woman is the church as a whole and the 144,000, a symbolic number, is the overcomers of the church). Zion in the New Testament is the church.

Paul quotes, “The one delivering will come from Zion. He will turn ungodliness from Jacob, ²⁷and this is a covenant from me to them.” Paul adds here, “when I will take away their sins.” This is not a quote of the Old Testament. Is. 27.9 says, “Therefore by this will the iniquity of Jacob be forgiven.” Perhaps that is the verse Paul was referring to. I believe the statement “from Zion” refers to the second coming of Christ. He is now in the heavenly Zion (Rev. 14.1). From there he will return after the great tribulation (Mt. 24.29-30). He will meet his earthly people in the air (1 Thess. 4.16-17). Then, I think, he will descend to earth where his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives (Zech. 14.4). The faithful Jews will see him coming and mourn, recognizing him as their Messiah and receiving him (Zech. 12.10, 13.1).

Just to reiterate: the Lord Jesus came to Zion in Is. 59.20, Zech. 9.9, Mt. 21.5, and Jn. 12.15. He will come from Zion in Rom. 11.26 and Rev. 14.1.

²⁸Indeed, according to the good news they are enemies for your sake,

Paul has said that Israel’s setting aside is for the benefit of the Gentiles (v. 15), and their being branches broken from the tree is because of their unbelief, with Gentiles believing (v. 20) and being grafted in. In a sense they were enemies of God for the sake of the Gentiles.

but according to the election, beloved for the fathers’ sake, ²⁹for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

But God still loves them, loves them for the sake of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the faithful saints of the Old Testament. His love for them is eternal. He set them aside for a time, but his calling of them is irrevocable. He will bring them back.

³⁰For just as you were once disobedient to God, but now you were shown mercy by their disobedience, ³¹so also these now were disobedient for your mercy, that they also now may be shown mercy. ³²For God shut up all to disobedience that he may show mercy to all.

The Gentiles were disobedient to God, living as pagans with little consideration for morality and right and wrong. When the Jews were disobedient, rejecting their Messiah, the Gentiles were brought in. Being disobedient for mercy to the Gentiles, the Jews may also be sown mercy, and have been and will be.

We may wonder why we have all been disobedient. That is not an easy question to answer. Paul says here that “God shut up all to disobedience that he may show mercy to all.” Paul says the same thing again in Gal. 3.22: “But the Scripture shut all things up under sin that the promise from faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those having faith.” This reminds us of Rom. 8.20 that “creation was subjected to futility.” Gal. 3.22 says “all things, not just humans, are shut up under sin and futility. Creation has not sinned, but is subject to the results of sin. Because of sin, God “shut up all to disobedience that he may show mercy to all,” that the promise from faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those having faith.” This is one mystery of God that we do know about, but do not fully understand.

³³Oh the depth of riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways!

Reading this statement causes me to think, Well, Paul has been trying to explain all of this, but he just cannot do it fully. It is beyond human comprehension. It is as though he just throws up his hands and says, “Oh the depth of riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways!”

³⁴For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? [Is. 40.13-14] ³⁵For who has first given to him and it will be recompensed to him? [Job 41.11] ³⁶For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory into the ages. Amen.

Our little minds cannot grasp the mind of God. Do we think we can counsel him? I think sometimes we try to as though we know better than God! Have we given him anything so that he owes us something? We have nothing to give but what he has already given to us. Just stop trying to figure it out and say, “For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory into the ages. Amen.”

12. I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the mercies of God, to present your bodies a sacrifice, living, holy, well pleasing, to God, your logical worship,

The first place in the Bible where the word “worship” is used is Gen. 22. God had told Abraham to take his only son Isaac to Mt. Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering. It is quite noteworthy that Genesis says not that Abraham pleaded or argued with God, but that he rose up early in the morning and started out with Isaac for the sacrifice. Gen. 22.5 tells us that when he and his servants and Isaac arrived at the mount, “And Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go there and we will worship and come again to you.’” Abraham said they were going to worship. What was he doing? Offering his son as a burnt offering. This tells us that the essence of worship is sacrifice. And Paul tells us here to “present [our] bodies a sacrifice, living, holy, well pleasing, to God, your logical worship.” The burnt offering was the center of the Jewish system of worship, as seen in Lev. 1-7. Paul tells us here to offer ourselves as a sacrifice. And he says that that is our logical worship. What does that mean? It means that if all he has been saying in Romans is true, it is only logical that we offer ourselves to him. He says that we are to be a living sacrifice. He is not telling us to put ourselves to death, but to accept our crucifixion with Christ (Rom. 6.6) and live as resurrected from the dead for him. Of course, there are those who are martyred for God, but he is emphasizing here that our lives should be wholly for God.

²and don’t be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of the mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, the good and well pleasing and perfect.

In this age Satan is the ruler of the world (Jn. 12.31, 14.30, 16.11) and the god of this age (2 Cor. 4.4). If we are conformed to this age we are under his influence at least, and possibly his control, and his plan for us is rejection of God and ultimately hell. Instead we are to be transformed, transformed by the renewal of our minds. What does Paul mean by this? The word “repent,” a requirement for salvation (Mk. 1.15), literally means “the mind after,” that is, a change of mind. When we repent we change our minds from the way we have been thinking and living and take up a new way, trust in God. And we grow in that. Transformation is a process. There is an immediate change, but then there is a lifelong process of the Lord revealing more of himself and more spiritual truth and taking us deeper into himself (1 Cor. 2.10). In this growth we find the will of God for us and prove that by experience. His will is “good and well pleasing and perfect,” what is best for us.

³For I say through the grace given to me to everyone being among you not to be high minded beyond what it is necessary to think, but to think so as to be sober minded as God distributed to each a measure of faith.

At this point Paul goes from an emphasis on doctrine to dealing with our everyday life and behavior as the Lord’s people, the practical application of the doctrine. He begins by telling us not to be high minded, to be proud, conceited. We have already seen the danger of pride. It is also destructive of relationships. People do not like to be looked down on or to have someone lord it over them. That is not conducive to the building up of the body of Christ (Eph. 4.12). Only Christ is the Head. We are all members. We need to be sober minded, thinking straight, taking our role in the church seriously. We all have a measure of faith. God wants to grow that faith, but being high minded does not help with that.

⁴For just as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, ⁵so we the many are one body in Christ, but members each one of one another, ⁶but having different gifts according to the grace given to us: if prophecy, according to the proportion of the faith; ⁷if serving, in the serving; if the one teaching, in the teaching; ⁸if the one exhorting, in the exhortation; the one giving, in simplicity; the one leading, with diligence; the one showing mercy, with cheerfulness.

We are all one body spiritually, the body of Christ. Just as our human bodies have many members that have different functions, with all being necessary, so is it with the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12.13, Eph. 4.12). Paul enlarges on this in 1 Cor. 12.14-27. All of the members must function properly for the body to function as it should. We have what are called vital organs, ones we cannot live without, the brain, the heart, and so forth. Some do not seem to be vital and we can live without them, such as hands, feet, even legs, and so on. But the body is limited when these parts are not there. So it is in the church. I suppose there are functions that the body of Christ can live without, but the body of Christ will not function as fully as it should. We all have a function and all are important.

Paul lists here several functions: prophecy, serving, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading, showing mercy. What would the church be without prophecy, the declaring of the word of God, whether it be expounding the Bible or giving a word of prediction that God has given. What would the church be without serving? We are all called to serve God, and some have particular aspects of service. What would the church be without teaching? There is a difference between prophecy and teaching. Prophecy is the proclaiming of the word. Teaching is digging into the word and drawing out its meanings. What would the church be without exhorting? Exhorting is urging people to get with it. Sometimes we get lax in our Christian living and we need to be told to do what we ought to do. The book of Hebrews is an exhortation (Heb. 13.22). What would the church be without giving? And not just financial giving, though that is Scriptural and needed, but giving of ourselves where needed. What would the church be without leading. There have been battles in war that have been lost with great loss of life and limb and territory for lack of leadership. Our leaders are not dictators, but they are a necessity. What would the church be without mercy? What if every time one of us made a mistake or even sinned there were no mercy. We all make mistakes and need mercy. We all sin and need forgiveness if we truly repent, and Paul says that church discipline, which is so lacking in these days, is not to condemn someone, but to restore him (2 Cor. 2.1-8, Gal. 6.1).

⁹Let love be without hypocrisy, abhorring the evil, cleaving to the good, ¹⁰affectionate to one another in brotherly love, setting the example to one another in honor, ¹¹in diligence not lagging, being fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, ¹²rejoicing in hope, in tribulation enduring, persevering in prayer, ¹³sharing in the needs of the saints, pursuing hospitality.

Paul continues with his instructions on Christian living. We might say that we love someone, but do so hypocritically, not really loving, but putting on a false face. The Lord Jesus was very condemning of hypocrisy. Mt 23.13-33 is a good example, and it ends with his exclamation, “Snakes, brood of vipers, how would you flee from the judgment of hell!” It is of great interest that the Greek word for “hypocrites” means literally “under judgment.” Love should be genuine, without hypocrisy.

There is a lot of toleration of sin these days, even in the church, or maybe I should say the so-called church. Paul tells us to abhor evil, to cleave to the good. He says that we should be “affectionate to one another in brotherly love.” The word “love” here is not the word agape, which refers to God’s love, but philadelphia, brotherly love. It means more a family love or love among close friends. The church is the family of God. Love one another as brothers and sisters.

Paul tells us to set an example to one another in honor. Many people are impressionable, especially children. They will act as they see others act. If we set a bad example we can expect bad results. This is especially important in homes. Children will mimic their parents, or if they are mistreated they may withdraw into themselves and become dangerously introverted, or they may “act out,” as we say, with bad behavior. But this is also important in the church. If a new Christian sees improper behavior in the church, he may think it is alright for him to behave that way, or he say, “Hypocrites,” and turn away from the Lord. We have all heard of people who reject Christ because, they say, of hypocrisy in so-called Christians. It is so important how we live before people, in the church, in the home, and in the world. Paul also speaks of honor. We as children of God should honor one another, not look down on others. We are all of equal value before the Lord.

 
We are to be diligent, Scripture tells us (2 Tim. 2.15, 2 Pt. 3.14), “in diligence not lagging.” We are not to be lackadaisical, but diligent, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. When things are not going as we would like for them to, we are to rejoice in hope, and remember that our hope is not for this world, but for God’s kingdom and for eternity. In tribulation we are to endure: “If we endure we will also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2.12). We can reign over our circumstances in this life (Rom. 5.17), and in his millennial kingdom and into eternity.

A vital part of all of this is persevering in prayer. Our greatest need is the Lord himself. How can we draw on him if we do not stay in touch with him? We are to pray in every way, first of all worshipping him and praising him and thanking him before we start asking. In our asking we ought to pray for others as well as for ourselves, probably more than for ourselves. And we have to persevere. We do not pray just once and then give up if we do not hear from him, but to seek him until the answer comes, however long it may take. There is an emphasis in the Bible on waiting on the Lord.

And we are to pursue hospitality.  Heb. 13.2 says, “Do not neglect hospitality, for because of this some were unaware having entertained angels.” Some of you old-timers like me may remember that Dale Evans, wife of Roy Rogers, wrote a book, Angel Unaware, about her Down Syndrome baby who lived only 2 1/2 years. “Angel Unaware is Robin’s account of her life as she looks down from heaven. As she speaks to God about the mission of love she just completed on earth, the reader sees how she brought her parents closer to God and encouraged them to help other children in need. This book, which changed the way America treated children with special needs….” Pursue hospitality.

¹⁴Bless those persecuting you. Bless and do not curse.

We tend to consider as enemies those who persecute us, either directly or as parts of behavior that is damaging to our country or property or reputations and so forth. But Eph. 6.10 says that our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil. People are not our enemies. Satan and his forces are our enemies and of those people we might consider enemies. Satan is the enemy of all people. He wants all to go to hell. Instead of considering people as our enemies we need to see them as people misled by Satan into living a sinful life. We need to bless them, pray for them. If we had not been saved we would be on the way to hell. The Lord Jesus says in Mt. 5.44 to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” We need the Lord. They need the Lord. Do not curse them. Bless them. Pray for them. Witness to them if possible.

¹⁵Rejoice with those rejoicing. Weep with those weeping,

Sometimes we are envious of those who are rejoicing. Why did they enjoy something that made them rejoice and we did not? No, be happy for them. Rejoice with them. And don’t tell people they shouldn’t cry. Don’t we cry when we have good reason? Weep with them. Comfort them. Pray for them.

¹⁶being of the same mind with one another, not minding high things, but being led to humble things. Don’t be wise to yourselves,

We as Christians should not argue with each other, but seek the Lord’s mind together. How many churches have split over trivial matters? No, get on your knees together and ask the Lord what he wants. What I want doesn’t matter. And don’t seek out something we can be proud of. We have already seen the danger of pride more than once. I have heard of skyscrapers being built a little taller than another for bragging rights. I can imagine the same thing being done with church buildings. The Lord Jesus was humble and meek (Mt. 11.29). Is he not the example? No, seek humble things – the Lord Jesus had nowhere to lay his head (Mt. 8.20, Lk. 9.58). The head of Catholicism lives in a glorious palace surrounded by unimaginable wealth. And don’t be wise to yourself. Some of us are wise. Some are not. Whatever wisdom you have is God-given. Don’t be proud of it. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. If you do not have the fear of God you are a fool, however worldly wise you may be.

¹⁷not repaying evil for evil to anyone; “providing good things before all men” [Prov. 3.4 LXX]. ¹⁸If possible, on your part living in peace with all men, ¹⁹not avenging yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath, for it has been written, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay” [Dt. 32.35], says the Lord. ²⁰But “if your enemy should hunger, feed him. If he should thirst, give him a drink, for doing this you will heap coals of fire on his head” [Prov. 25.21-22]. ²¹Do not be overcome by the evil, but overcome the evil by the good.

This passage brings up the whole matter of getting even. That seems to be human nature, but it is one of the fundamental causes of all the trouble in the world. Instead of getting even, why not try doing something good for someone who has wronged you, or you think has wronged you? (Paul quotes Prov. 3.4 here. The LXX means The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament for Jews who spoke Greek, not Hebrew. Sometimes the Greek translation does not agree with the Hebrew. The Greek version was the Bible of Greek-speaking Jews and the first Christians. Paul spoke both Hebrew and Greek, and here he quotes the Greek version.)

Paul tells us to seek to live in peace with all people. “It takes two to fight,” as they say. Don’t try to get revenge, but do what the Bible says, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay”[Dt. 32.35], says the Lord. Do good for people, even your “enemies.” If they are hungry or thirsty, feed them or give them water. Paul again quotes Proverbs: “… for doing this you will heap coals of fire on his head.” This seems strange, like getting revenge in a roundabout way. This is just my thought, but I would think that Paul would say that this behavior would cause a person to realize that his behavior is worthy of coals of fire, perhaps even the fire of hell, and cause him to repent. I hope none of us would want to pour coals of fire on someone’s head, even though we might feel that way sometimes!

Paul concludes this section with, “Do not be overcome by the evil, but overcome the evil by the good.” If we are trying to get revenge, we are being overcome by evil ourselves. Instead we are to do all in our power to overcome evil with good. Perhaps God will use our good behavior in the sight of evil behavior to turn someone to himself. Our lashing out certainly will not. It would just call for the other person to lash out against us again, continuing the evil. The Lord Jesus had the ability to wipe out those who sent him to the cross in an instant, but he hung there and died for the very ones who were crucifying him as he did for us. Overcome evil with good.

13. Let every soul be subject to authorities being above, for there is not authority if not under God, but those existing have been put in place by God. ²Therefore the one opposing the authority has resisted the decree of God, but those having resisted will bring judgment on themselves. ³For the rulers are not a cause of fear to good work, but to evil. But do you want not to fear the authority? Do the good and you will have praise from it. ⁴For it is a servant of God to you for the good. But if you do the evil, fear, for it does not bear the sword in vain, for it is a servant of God, one exacting justice for wrath to the one doing the evil. ⁵Therefore it is a necessity to submit, not only for the wrath, but also because of the conscience. ⁶For because of this you pay taxes, for they are servants of God, attending constantly to this very thing. ⁷Give to all their dues, to whom the tax, the tax, to whom the revenue, the revenue, to whom the respect, the respect, to whom the honor, the honor.

I am sure many of us have trouble with this passage because of the corruption and wrongdoing and waste of much of the government. I think our difficulty is well founded, but nonetheless God himself says that we are to obey the government, the laws. We live in a fallen world where none of us are perfect and many do evil, but there must be government or there will be anarchy. I do believe in civil disobedience, but that is not refusing to obey a law because we do not like it, but disobey something that God forbids. People have been martyred rather than deny Christ. This is taking place in this day.

I also believe absolute dictatorship is the best form of government, but that will not take place until the Lord Jesus is reigning in righteousness. Dictators in this world abuse their power to enrich themselves and will do many evil things to their own people, and many have launched wars that have killed millions. The one we always think of is Adolf Hitler. He and the Japanese began World War II that resulted in the death of an estimated 50 to 70 million people. The problem with earthly dictators is that we are all fallen people and many will do wrong, and even what we call good leaders are imperfect and make mistakes. Lord Acton, a British politician of the 19th century said, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I disagree. I think power reveals corruption and absolute power reveals absolute corruption. We are all capable of corruption, but most of us have no way to express it on a large scale. There is much corruption by power in, say, a father mistreating his wife and children.

Democracy seems to me to be the best form of government in our fallen world. People have a say in how they are treated. But it is certainly and obviously not perfect.

Luke 12.37 is a remarkable verse: “Blessed are those slaves whom the Lord, having come, will find watching. Amen I say to you that he will gird himself and make them recline and, having come, will serve them” (literally, “kicking up dust” because “on the move,” Discovery Bible). Our Servant King will not use us for his benefit, but will serve us. We call government officials and employees “public servant.” Some are and some are not. Our Lord Jesus will be THE Public Servant. He will be an absolute dictator, but a good one. Praises!

⁸Owe no one anything but to love one another, for the one loving the other has fulfilled the law.

We have seen that the law is a great issue in Romans. Paul has stressed over and over that we are not saved by keeping the law. We cannot keep it perfectly. The law still stands. We ought to keep the law, but it cannot save us. We saw earlier in considering Rom. 3.21 that the law is not intended for the righteous (1 Tim. 1.9), but for those who do not keep it. How then are we to proceed?

Paul says here that we are to “Owe no one anything but to love one another,” and he explains that “… the one loving the other has fulfilled the law.” If we love one another, we will do what is right, not because we have to, but because we want to. It is love that fulfills the law.

This theme is repeated in the New Testament. In Mt. 22.37-40 we read

And he answered him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul [Dt. 6.5] and with all your mind. ³⁸This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [Lev. 19.18] ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Love is the answer to the question as to how we do what is right. One of the great problems in the world is enmity and hatred, or just not caring. We may make mistakes, but we will not deliberately hurt someone we love. “Love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind….” And “love your neighbor as yourself”and you will do what is right without even thinking about the law.

Gal. 5.14 says, “For the whole law has been fulfilled in one word, in this, ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself.’” Same thing. Love and you will fulfill the law.

James 2.8 reads, “If indeed you are keeping the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well.” Don’t be concerned about the law, but about loving. If you do, “you are doing well.”

⁹For, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet” [Ex. 20.13-15, 17, Dt. 5.17-19, 21], and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself“ [Lev. 19.18]. ¹⁰Love does not do evil to the neighbor. Therefore love is fulfillment of law.

Paul names some of the Old Testament laws from the Ten Commandments and says that love is the answer to all of these laws. Love and you will not break these laws.

¹¹And this: knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we had faith.

If any Christians are spiritually asleep in these evil days (Gal. 1.4, 2 Tim. 3.1-5), let them know that it is time to wake up. The Greek for “time” here is kairos. The usual word for time is chronos, which basically means the passing of time, seconds, minutes, hours, and so forth. Kairos has to do with a particularly important time, a time of opportunity or decision or something very meaningful. Paul is telling his readers here that something important is about to take place. What is that important thing? He says that “our salvation is nearer than when we had faith.” He does not mean just the chronos, the clock is ticking, but that something related to our salvation is about to take place. What is it?

God back to Rom. 8.23: “… we also groan in ourselves awaiting son-placing, the redemption of our body.” We saw there that when we have reached some level of maturity, of being led by the holy Spirit, we become sons of God, not just children (Rom. 8.14). We have responsibility in life and in the church. I do not mean an official position in the church. All Christians who have matured are responsible and should exercise that responsibility. Sad to say, many do not. As that may be, when we become sons we have that spirit of son-placing, our longing for our son-placing, the redemption of our bodies and our place of responsibility in the millennial kingdom, reigning with Christ as his bride.

That “son-placing, the redemption of our body,” is the end of our salvation. We always hear about needing our souls saved. That is true, but what we need at first is the birth of our spirit, dead toward God (Eph. 2.1). The beginning of salvation is being born again, of the Spirit (Jn. 3.3, 5). That has to do with our spirits, not our souls.

The salvation of our souls begins with the new birth, but it is actually a lifelong process. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 1.18 that we are, not saved, but being saved. We are born again and are being saved. The word for “save” in Greek also means “heal.” After a number of his healing miracles, the Lord Jesus said to the person healed, “Your faith has saved you.” Did he mean “saved” or “healed”? Probably both. The point here is that what our souls really need is healing. All of us have had some sort of damage to our souls, whether it be from our own sin or from something that happened in our childhood that hurt us badly, or the loss of a loved one or something a trusted friend did to hurt us. Some damage is very severe, making it difficult for us to function. Most of us have a milder form of damage, but we all need healing for our soul. God is working in our lives to bring about that healing and there will come a day when that healing is complete.

In 1 Pt. 1.5 Peter writes that we are “kept by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” There is a beginning of salvation that begins when we are born again. There is the ongoing of salvation by God’s healing of our damaged souls. Now our salvation is nearer than when we had faith.” And there “a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” The salvation of our souls is in process. When the Lord returns, raises the dead in Christ and catches up the living, redeems our bodies, and gives us our son-placing, our place of responsibility in his kingdom, our salvation will be complete. (See my article Aspects of Salvation for a fuller treatment of this subject, available at no charge on my website, www.tomadcox.com.)

¹²The night is far gone, but day has come near. Therefore put off the works of the darkness, but we should put on the weapons of the light. ¹³We should walk properly as in day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and wantonness, not in strife and envy. ¹⁴But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the lusts of the flesh.

The night of darkness that we now live in in this world is passing away (1 Cor. 7.31). It is not the time to engage in the works of darkness. We read in 1 Thess. 5.3, “When they say, ‘Peace and safety,’ sudden destruction comes on them….” We do not know the day or the hour, but God’s word says that it is near: “… put on the weapons of the light.” We should walk properly as in the day, though in these times we see more and more people reveling in the day and expressing pride in their sin. Putting on the weapons of light is the same thing as putting “on the Lord Jesus Christ.” He is the Light of the world. “Make no provision for the lusts of the flesh.”

14. Accept the one being weak in the faith, but not for judgment of his reasoning. ²One indeed has faith to eat all things, but the one being weak eats vegetables. ³Let the one eating not treat the one not eating with contempt, but let the one not eating not judge the one eating, for God received him. ⁴Who are you, the one judging another’s servant? He stands or falls to his own Lord. For the Lord is able to make him stand. ⁵One indeed judges a day beside a day, but one judges every day alike. Let each one be fully assured in his own mind. ⁶The one taking account of the day as to the Lord takes account of it. The one eating eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God.

These verses deal with one’s own conscience and belief as to what God requires. Some matters are not subject to one’s opinion, such as the divinity of Christ and the truth of his redeeming death and his resurrection, but others are matters about which each one must follow his own conscience. Paul sees some as what he calls weak in the faith: ”the one being weak eats vegetables” only, no meat. Others think it is alright to eat all things. Some think certain days should be set aside as what we might call holy days. Others think all days are alike. The matter of Saturday or Sunday is an issue. Some think only Saturday is the proper day, others, Sunday. The Lord said to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy, that is, set apart for God. That is in the Old Testament, when the holy day was actually Friday at sunset through Saturday at sunset. Rev. 1.10 says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day….” People say this refers to Sunday, but the Bible itself does not say that. Seventh Day Adventists say Saturday is the holy day. Acts 20.7 says, “But on the first day of the week, we having come together to break bread….” The first day of the week is Sunday. But the verse just says that they came together, not that it was a special day for worship. We read in 1 Cor. 16.2, “On the first of the week, let each of you put aside to himself, setting aside what he may have prospered in….” This verse is a bit difficult to translate. The word “day” is not in the Greek. It says, “On the first.” The word I have translated “week” is the Hebrew word “sabbath” in Greek characters. The word “sabbath” literally means to cease or rest (very literally “stop day”). What they in 1 Cor. 16.2 were doing on the first of the sabbath was setting aside funds for Paul’s gift to take to poor Christians in Jerusalem. It does not say whether this day was a special day of worship or not. The Bible does not say that Sunday is to be set apart for God. Christians began to worship on Sunday because that is the day of Christ’s resurrection.

You see what I am getting at. The Bible commands the Jews to observe their Sabbath. It does not command Christians to observe any day as far as I can find. I certainly believe it is proper to set aside a day for worship and I observe Sunday and attend worship services on Sunday. I also attend a prayer meeting on Thursday nights. How many of us set aside Sunday as a holy day, set apart for God wholly? How many of us go out to lunch on Sunday after services and go home and watch TV or whatever we want to do, or take a drive or attend an event or play a game or go shopping? My whole point is that there are some issues on which you must follow your conscience and beliefs, as long as they do not contradict God’s word. As I said above, the Lord said to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy, that is, set apart for God. Is it set apart for God if we do all these things?

On vs. 3 and 4, “Let the one eating not treat the one not eating with contempt, but let the one not eating judge the one eating, for God received him. Who are you, the one judging another’s servant? He stands or falls to his own lord. For the Lord is able to make him stand,” we are not to treat with contempt or judge the ones we disagree with on these issues. I like Paul’s question, “Who are you, the one judging another’s servant?” We are accountable to God on these matters, not to each other, though I certainly believe that we as the body of Christ, members of one another, have an obligation to consider one another on these matters. We are not free just to flaunt our beliefs in the face of others. We should try not to offend one another. More on this in a few verses.

⁷For no one of us lives to himself and no one dies to himself. ⁸For if we should live we live to the Lord. If we should die we die to the Lord. Therefore if we should live or if we should die we are the Lord’s. ⁹For unto this Christ died and lived, that he might be Lord over both dead and living.

I think we all know that our behavior is not just to ourselves, but affects any number of others, Christian and otherwise. Do we want to hurt our brothers and sisters, in the family or in the Lord? Do we want to be a bad witness before those who need the Lord? If we disagree on issues, let us do it properly. We can harm what Paul calls a weaker brother or sister by flouting his or her behavior, or the weaker one can flout people with his beliefs. Unless it is a matter of doctrine that cannot be compromised, as mentioned above, we should agree to disagree, as is said. But let us stay in fellowship with one another. Is there anyone with whom agree 100% on everything? Probably not. We do not live or die just to ourselves. How we live affects others. How we die affects others.

Above all, we live or die to the Lord. Let us live so as not to hurt God or offend him or stir up his wrath. Let us die in faith in him. Some will die without knowing it, being asleep or in a medical condition that renders unconscious. Those who are conscious at death we would hope would die trusting in the Lord.

Our Lord Jesus Christ himself both died and lived. He knows what it is to live as unto his Father. He knows how to die as unto his Father. He knows what it is to be resurrected from the dead and live again. He is Lord of both the dead and the living. He can take his dying saints to be with him forever. He can see the living through life and through death. He is a wonderful Savior!

¹⁰But why do you judge your brother, or also why do you treat your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. ¹¹For it has been written, “’I live,’ says the Lord, ‘that every knee will bow to me and every tongue will confess God’” [Is. 45.23]. ¹²So then each of us will give account to God concerning himself.

All of this being the case, why do we judge someone else? God is the only righteous Judge. Why do we treat someone with contempt? We are all equal before God, though he certainly knows where we all stand with him. Instead of holding a fellow believer in contempt, let us agree to disagree, as we said, but consider each one as the Lord’s. There are those who may need church discipline (1 Cor. 5, 2 Cor. 5.5-8), but we are to turn them out only if they have sinned and refuse to repent. If they do repent, we should love them and accept them back into fellowship. How many of us have never sinned?

“We will all stand before the judgment seat of God” (see also 2 Cor. 5.10). We will all give account, and we will all receive rewards or lose them (not salvation, but rewards, (1 Cor. 3.15, Rev. 3.11). I had better see to my own relationship with God and not judge someone else, though I should be available to help someone who needs help.

Paul makes all this completely sure by quoting Is. 45.23: “’I live,’ says the Lord, ‘that every knee will bow to me and every tongue will confess God.’” This passage is also referred to in Phil. 2.10-11. See to it that you are ready to face the Lord.

¹³Therefore we should no longer judge one another, but rather determine this, not to put a stumbling block before a brother, or a snare.

Instead of judging and arguing, or worse, over matters that are not clear in Scripture or that are tradition and cannot even be found in Scripture, why not decide “not to put a stumbling block before a brother, or a snare.” Instead of trying to tear something down or doing something that would cause brothers or sisters to stumble or be snared, why not work to build them up? Gal 5.11 says, “Then the stumbling block of the cross has been made of no effect.” It is not my plan to expound this verse, but to say that the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews. They could not accept a dead Messiah. Let us not insist on something that might make brothers or sisters turn away because they cannot accept what we insist on, but let us find things we can agree on and pursue them to our mutual benefit.

¹⁴And I know, I have been persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean [literally, common] of itself, but to one considering something to be unclean, to that one it is unclean. ¹⁵For if because of food your brother is grieved, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food that one for whom Christ died.

If we insist on doing something in front of a brother or sister who thinks what we are doing is wrong, we are not acting in love, and that is the key to the whole question. Paul wrote in Rom. 13.10, “Love does not do evil to the neighbor.” In 1 Cor. 8.13 Paul writes in love, “Therefore if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat into the age so that I might not cause my brother to stumble.” That is love, being willing to give something up forever for the good of another. Let us walk in such love. Christ died for that brother just as he died for you and me. Let us do nothing to hurt or even destroy him for the sake of getting our way.

¹⁶Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil.

If you think eating meat is a good thing, then do not let it be spoken of as evil because you insisted on eating it in front of someone who would be harmed by it and thereby by hurt him. Act in love. If you must eat meat, do it in some place where he is no present. But remember that Paul said he would never eat meat again if need be.

¹⁷For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. ¹⁸For the one serving Christ in this is pleasing to God and approved by men.

The kingdom of God is not about what we eat and drink. The kingdom of God is about righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is spiritual matter. The things of earth are matters of necessity because we have human bodies and live in a material world, but let us not make the things of the world important. The things of God, the spiritual matters, are important, and that includes using material things for his glory, not for our own pleasure and wishes. We are the Lord’s. Let us seek to live like it, being righteous, seeking peace with all, and expressing joy in the Holy Spirit that will be help to other
Christians and a good witness to those who need the Lord. We are not living for this world, but for his kingdom, as we said in dealing with Rom. 8.31-32. This is pleasing to God. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 5.9, “Therefore we make it our aim, whether being at home or being away, to be well pleasing to him.” Paul lived to be pleasing to God. Should we not do that also? And we are also approved by men by this behavior, though there are always those who do not approve of such behavior. There are always enemies of Christ who will take that enmity out on followers of Christ. Satan cannot get at God, so he tries to hurt him through us. Let us endure faithfully and pray for these enemies of God who need him so desperately, and seek to be good witnesses before them. Perhaps we might bring some to salvation. James 5.19-20 says, “My brothers, if anyone among you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, ²⁰let him know that the one having brought a sinner back from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.”

¹⁹So then we should pursue the things of peace and the things of edification for one another. ²⁰Do not destroy the work of God for food. All things are indeed clean, but it is evil to the one eating and causing a stumbling block. ²¹But it is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or anything by which your brother stumbles.

We should not insist on our own way, but seek peace with all and seek the edification of all. As we have said, we are the body of Christ. Would you deliberately do something harmful to some part of your body? Of course not. Then do not do something that would hurt a member of the body of Christ. Our insisting on our food can destroy what God has accomplished in someone and cause him to turn away from God. The Lord Jesus declared all foods as clean (Mk. 7.19) and Paul says that here, but the one eating and thus causing a stumbling block is doing evil. However much you may love meat and wine or anything, love your brothers and sisters more.

²²The faith that you have in yourself have before God.

Your faith in God is between him and you. No one else should come into that, nor should you try to get into someone else’s faith in God.

Blessed is the one not condemning himself in what he approves.

That is, you are blessed if you follow Paul’s instructions and do not condemn yourself by hurting a brother or sister by insisting on exercising your rights. Some have said that we have no rights – we are God’s property, not our own. We should seek to build up the brothers and sisters, not to get our way.

²³But the one doubting if he eats has been condemned because it is not of faith, but everything that is not of faith is sin.

Faith and obedience sum up the Christian faith, as we have said. If we doubt that it is alright to eat something and eat it anyway, we condemn ourselves in that situation. I do not believe this means that we lose our salvation, but that we show ourselves to be wrong in that instance. We all veer away from faith at times. Repentance is the answer. But, says Paul, “everything that is not of faith is sin.” We act because we believe it is pleasing to God. If we act otherwise it is sin. Let us seek to walk in faith always.

15. But we the strong ought to bear with the weaknesses of the weak and not to please ourselves. ²Let each of us please the neighbor for the good unto edification. ³For Christ also did not please himself, but as it has been written, “The reproaching of those reproaching you fell on me” [Ps. 69.9].

It appears that Paul considered himself one of the strong. That seems to be the case since he was called by God to be an apostle and wrote thirteen books of the New Testament. He continues his instructions about not looking down on or ridiculing those he considered weak. They are the Lord’s nonetheless and the strong should bear with them and not just try to please themselves. God has not told us to please ourselves, but to serve (Mk. 9.35, 10.43-44). We are not to live for ourselves, but for him. We should please our neighbors, in the right way, of course, and try to build them up in the Lord, which is what “edification” means. An edifice is a building. Our calling is to edify, to build up. What is the greatest example? Christ himself: “For Christ also did not please himself, but as it has been written, ‘The reproaching of those reproaching you fell on me.’”

The quotation is from Ps. 69.9, a psalm in which David cries to God in destress because of his enemies. As is often the case in the Old Testament, a statement about someone leads into something future. This is frequently the case in prophecy, as for example, when a passage about the time of the prophet goes into a prophecy of the future. Is. 7.14 is a good example, where Isaiah says to King Ahaz that “the Lord himself will give you a sign: look, a virgin will conceive and bear a son and will call his name Immanuel.” A messianic psalm is one that contains prophecy about the coming Messiah. P. 69 is such a psalm. David thought he was suffering. What our lord suffered for us is beyond our comprehension.

⁴For what was written was written for our instruction, so that through the endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Why was the Bible written? Is it just a historical record so that we could know what went on in the past? Of course not. It is the word of God himself to us, to instruct us about himself, about what he requires of us, what he has done for us, how we should proceed in responding to his word, and so forth. Aul says here that it is written for our instruction, and for us to have hope because we endure whatever life brings in obedience to him, and to encourage us. And it is not just for us Christians today, but for the Jews of the Old Testament and of the New Testament era, and for those who came to know the Lord Jesus., and for the lost who need to hear about new birth and salvation.

One thing that I am most thankful for is the Bible. Some religions have a “holy book” that purports to instruct its followers, but many do not. They have a priest, whether he be called a priest or a witch doctor or whatever. The followers of the religion are dependent on him. He tells them what to do. Sometimes he abuses his position, requiring his followers to pay him for instructions or forgiveness or whatever. In the Middle Ages Catholicism withheld the Bible from its adherents. The Bibles were in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin. The people did not know those languages. Only the so-called “church” could read and interpret the Bible. Some of the first men who tried to make the Bible available to people in their languages were put to death. The religion did not want the people to have the Scriptures for themselves. I wonder why?

The New Testament tells us that every man is a priest – see 1 Pt. 2.5 and 9 and Rev. 1.6 and 5.10: we are a kingdom of priests. That means that we do not need a priest to mediate between God and us. We can go directly to God himself and study the Scriptures for ourselves. There are no priests over other men in the church. We do have elders who have authority, but they are not dictators.

That is why I am so thankful for the Bible. We can read it for ourselves and see what God has for us. Praises!

⁵But may the God of the endurance and the encouragement give you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus,

Some might say that if we have the right to interpret the Bible for ourselves, we can believe anything we want to, and there certainly are differences of opinion, as we have already seen with matter of the strong and the weak. But there are teachings of the Bible that are essential – the divinity of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the sinlessness of the Lord Jesus and his efficacious death for our salvation, his resurrection from the dead, and his being seated at the right hand of God in Heaven. I think all Bible-believing Christians have to hold to these doctrines. And the Lord Jesus himself and Paul and Jude warn us of false teachers, wolves in sheeps’ clothing, who try to subvert the sheep. We do have the right to interpret for ourselves, but there are boundaries. We are to be of the same mind on these issues.

It is remarkable that after the Reformation there were wars fought between professing Christian groups over doctrinal differences. Theology is important, but it is also one of Satan’s greatest weapons. He loves to get Christians divided over doctrines, with consequent splits in churches, establishment of new denominations, and refusal to worship together. There is only one church and there are no denominations in the Bible. That is of man, not of God. How sad that we are not of one mind. It is alright if we have differences of opinion so long as they are not heretical, but that should not interfere with our fellowship. If you are the Lord’s you are my brother or sister and we should be able to worship and fellowship together.

so that with the same passion, with one mouth, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Why can we not worship together and glorify God together with passion? Are you passionate for God? Am I? Why not lay aside our differences, unless they are unscriptural and heretical, and worship on the basis of what we all believe, that the Lord Jesus was born of a virgin and had no sin, was crucified for our sins, was raised from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and sits at the right hand of his Father awaiting his return to put an end to the evil in the world and establish his kingdom in Heaven and on earth. (There will be some on earth during the millennium who have not yielded in heart as seen in the fact that at the end of that era, Satan will be released from hades and will raise one final army from the Gentiles who are on the earth at that time to rebel and try to overthrow Christ’s kingdom and defeat the Lord – Rev. 20.7-9. But fire will come from Heaven and devour them, and the devil will be cast into the lake of fire.)

⁷Therefore receive one another as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.

Why can we not receive one another as Christ received us? If Christ received both of us, can we not fellowship and worship together? Paul as much as commands us here to receive one another – as Christ received us. If Christ received you, I think I can receive you, too, and not refuse you because we have a difference of opinion on a matter that cannot be resolved. I do not believe in denominations. There are none in the Bible. I suppose we cannot avoid them because of the great division among the Lord’s people, but I can worship with group that is faithful to the Lord and worships him in spirit and in truth.

⁸For I say Christ to have become a servant of the circumcision for the truth of God in order to confirm the promises of the fathers, ⁹but the Gentiles to glorify God for mercy,

I wrote about Christians in general on the previous verse, but I think, according to this verse, that Paul was writing about Jews and Gentiles. The circumcision consists of Jews. The Lord Jesus became a servant of the Jews to confirm the promises of the fathers, the founders of Judaism, which were fulfilled in Christ. Those Jews who believe in Christ as their Messiah and trust in him are Christians, whether you call them messianic Jews or not. But he also became a servant to the Gentiles. All of this is for the glory of God. Both the Jewish Christians and the Gentiles Christians are in the only church there is.

as it has been written, “because of this I will praise you among Gentiles and I will sing to your name” [Ps. 18.49].

¹⁰And again it says, “Rejoice, Gentiles, with his people” [Dt. 32.43].

¹¹And again, “Praise the Lord, all Gentiles, and praise him all peoples” [Ps. 117.1].

¹²And again, Isaiah says, “There will be the root of Jesse and the one arising to rule Gentiles. In him Gentiles will hope” [Is. 11.10].

Paul quotes four verses to show that all believers in Christ are one. David, the writer of Ps. 18 says he will praise God among Gentiles. Moses says in Deuteronomy for Gentiles to rejoice with Jews. The writer of Ps. 117 tells Gentiles to praise I AM, and adds that all people should praise him. Isaiah says that there will be a root of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David, from whom the Lord Jesus was descended. That root would arise to rule the Gentiles and the Gentiles will hope in him. Are we not Gentiles who hope in the Root of Jesse? If messianic Jews and Christians can hope in the Root of Jesse together, why cannot all trye Christians receive one another. Paul asks in 1 Cor. 1.13, “Has Christ been divided?” The answer is a resounding NO. Then why are his people divided?

¹³But the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace in having faith, for you to abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As we receive one another, the God of hope will fill us with joy and peace as we trust in him. Thus we will abound in hope. Christian hope in not just wishing for something, but the surety that comes from knowing that God cannot and will not lie, and he is fully able to do what he says he will do. Our hope is sure. And the Holy Spirit empowers us to hope.

¹⁴But I myself am persuaded, my brothers, that you yourselves are also full of goodness, having been filled with all knowledge, being able also to admonish one another.

Paul is expressing confidence that his readers, whom he has not yet met, are also filled with the goodness of God, having been well taught, even to the point of being able to admonish one another when needed.

¹⁵But more boldly I wrote to you in part, as reminding you because of the grace given to me by God ¹⁶for me to be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, doing the holy work of the good news of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, having been made holy by the Holy Spirit.

Paul emphasizes the fact that his calling from God is to take the good news to Gentiles, and God gave him grace to accomplish this mission as a servant of the Lord Jesus. His work is holy, set apart for God, making his work acceptable to God because he worked by the power of the Holy Spirit.

¹⁷I therefore have the boasting in Christ Jesus in the things pertaining to God.

Paul can boast of what he has done because it is not in his power, but in the power of Christ. He gets all the credit, if I may put it that way. Glory to God. Paul is just an instrument.

¹⁸For I will not dare to speak anything which Christ has not accomplished through me, to obedience of Gentiles in word and in deed, ¹⁹in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit,

Paul will not dare to boast of anything he has done himself, for it is not his doing, but only of what Christ has accomplished through him. The obedience of the Gentiles to the good news was accomplished, nit by Paul, the messenger, but by the “power of signs and wonders” which the Holy Spirit did through him. Paul wrote in Gal. 6.14, “But may it not be for me to boast if not in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” Paul can boast, but not in himself, but only in what the Lord has done through him.

so as for me from Jerusalem and around to Illyricum to have fulfilled the good news of Christ,

The Lord has used Paul to take the good news of Christ all the way from Jerusalem to Illyricum. Illyricum was northwest of Macedonia, where Paul visited Samothrace, Neapolis, Philippi, Amphipolis, Thessalonica, and Berea. These cities were all in the east of Macedonia, far from Illyricum, and there is no record in the Bible of Paul actually going to Illyricum. Perhaps he went there without it being recorded in the Bible, or perhaps Paul means that he was near there. Whatever the case may be, the point is that Paul took the good news over a wide area, from Jerusalem all the way into Macedonia. As the crow flies, from Jerusalem to Berea is about 1200 miles. All the way to Illyricum would be more than 1400 miles. Keep in mind that a great deal of Paul’s journeys was on foot. It was quite a feat to cover so much territory in those days. He used ships to sail to Asia Minor and across the sea to Macedonia, but then he walked inland for many miles and back. No small achievement. But Paul does not boast in that. All the glory is God’s

²⁰but thus being desirous to preach the good news where Christ had not been named, so that I might not build on another’s foundation. ²¹But as it has been written, “Those to whom it was not proclaimed concerning him will see, and those who have not heard will understand” [Is. 52.15].

But Paul aspired to do even more. He wanted to go to more places where the name of Christ had never been heard, where he would not be building on another’s foundation, but opening new territory. Paul quotes Is. 52.15 as Scripture for what he desires to do. There are still many places in the world today where Christ has never been named. What are we doing to reach those places?

²²Therefore I was being hindered many times from coming to you, ²³but now, no longer having a place in these regions, but having a great yearning to come to you for many years, ²⁴as I may go to Spain,

He even wanted to go to Spain, about 2300 miles from Jerusalem as the crow flies! I suppose his being hindered from going to Rome was partially because of his arrest and imprisonment in Caesarea, but ultimately it was the will of God.

for I hope going through to see you and be sent forth by you there, if first I may be fulfilled by you for a while.

Paul had long wanted to go to Rome, and now he hoped at last to be able to go there on his way to Spain, I take it, and then, after a time of fellowship with them, to be sent by them on his way.

²⁵But now I am going to Jerusalem, ministering to the saints. ²⁶For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. ²⁷For they were pleased and are their debtors, for if the Gentiles shared in their spiritual things, they also ought to minister to them in the fleshly things. ²⁸For having finished this and having sealed to them this fruit, I will go through you to Spain. ²⁹For coming to you I will come in the fullness of blessing of Christ.

But first Paul had an errand to run. He had raised money in Macedonia and Achaia (southern Greece) for the needy saints in Jerusalem and would deliver that first. Paul points out that the Gentiles were benefiting from the spiritual things of Jerusalem – John 4.22: “For salvation is from the Jews” – so they should help the needy with material things. That is still the case today. We contribute financially to ministries that have helped us spiritually by bringing the good news to us so that they can have freedom to take the good news to still more. Having done this he plans to go to Rome and on to Spain.

³⁰But I exhort you, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in the prayers for me to God, ³¹that I may be delivered from those refusing to be persuaded in Judea, and that my service which is for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, ³²that having come to you in joy by the will of God I may be refreshed with you. ³³But the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

As he was accustomed to do, Paul asks for prayer (see Eph. 6.18-20). He knew that the battle is in the heavenlies and is won there before it is manifested on earth. Eph. 6.12 says, “… for our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.…” Our prayers for our own battles and for missionaries and those who witness and proclaim the good news publicly are where the battle is won or lost. He asks for prayer “through the love of the Spirit,” knowing that it is the love of God that is the reason for our salvation and for his desire for others to be saved through our efforts is prayer and witnessing.

He asks for deliverance from the Jews of Judea, and we know what took place as see in Acts 21-27, and that his service in Jerusalem, the heart of Judea, would be acceptable to the saints, those there who have trusted in the Lord Jesus. And beyond that, that having made it to Rome he and the Romans would be refreshed together. The importance of prayer.

Then Paul ends this chapter with one of his usual conclusions: “But the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” His letters begin with prayers for grace and peace, and his conclusions are the same. How we all need the grace and peace of God.

16. But I commend to you Phoebe our sister, being a servant of the church in Cenchrea, ²that you might receive her in the Lord worthily of the saints and stand by her in whatever matter she may have need of you.

It is thought by some that Phoebe was the woman who delivered the epistle to the church in Rome. Paul speaks highly of her and wants the Romans to receive her and help her in any way needed.

³Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who laid down their own necks for my life, whom not only I thank, but all the churches of the Gentiles, ⁵and the church in their house.

Acts 18.2 tells us that Paul met Prisca, or Pricilla, and Aquila, a Jew, in Corinth. They went there from Italy because the Emperor Claudius ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Claudius reigned from A.D. 41 to 54. The expulsion of the Jews is also referred to by two Roman historians and a Christian historian. An exact date is not given. Acts 18.3 says that Paul stayed with them because they were of the same trade, tentmakers.

Priscilla and Aquila are also mentioned in Acts 18.18, where we are told that they traveled with Paul from Corinth on his journey to Syria, the region of the town of Antioch, from which Paul had been sent out for his missionary trips. They passed on to Ephesus, and apparently Prisca and Aquila stayed there. Acts 18.26 says that when Apollos came to Ephesus and was preaching there, Priscilla and Aquila taught him the way of God more accurately. He knew only about the baptism of John.

We read in 1 Cor. 16.19 that Paul wrote to the Corinthians that Prisca and Aquilla sent greetings to them by way of Paul’s letter.

In 2 Tim. 4.19 Paul asks Timothy to greet Prisca and Aquila for him.

Rom. 18.3 speaks of the church in their house. Three other verses speak of the church in someone’s house, 1 Cor. 16.19, Col. 4.15, and Phm.2. There is no mention in the New Testament of what we know as a church building. The first actual church building was discovered in southeast Syria and it dates from the 230’s. It is possible that the very first Christians met on the temple grounds in Jerusalem (Acts 3.1), but that is not definite. This brings up another of my pet peeves. I decidedly do not like it when someone calls a church building the house of God. It is not! God’s house is his people (Eph. 2.17-22). Peter says that we are living stones in the spiritual house of God (1 Pt. 2.5). I want you to know that I do not go to church. I go to meetings of the church, the people of God, and that can be anywhere. For thirty-six years I worshipped with a house church that met in a couple’s home. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matt. 18.20).

Greet Epaenetus, my beloved, who is a firstfruit of Asia for Christ. ⁶Greet Mary, who toiled much for you. ⁷Greet Andronicus and Junius, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners who are notable among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. ⁸Greet Ampliatus my beloved in the Lord. ⁹Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and Stachys my beloved. ¹⁰Greet Apelles, the approved in Christ. Greet those of the household ofAristobulus. ¹¹Greet Herodian my kinsman. Greet those of the household of Narcissus, those being in the Lord. ¹²Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those toiling in the Lord. Greet Persis the beloved, who toiled much in the Lord. ¹³Greet Rufus, the chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine. ¹⁴Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas and the brothers with them. ¹⁵Greet Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister and Olympus and all the saints with them. ¹⁶Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.

Vs. 5b-16 are composed of greetings to various ones in Rome that Paul knew. Some were Paul’s kinsmen. He urges the Romans to greet one another with a holy kiss. When he tells the Romans to greet Rufus “and his mother and mine,” we do not know that Rufus’ mother was also his. It seems more likely to me that he regarded her as a mother because of his relationship with her. Paul was born in Tarsus in southeast Asia Minor. We know nothing about his parents.

¹⁷I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those causing divisions and stumbling blocks contrary to the teaching that you learned and turn away from them. ¹⁸For such are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own belly, but through smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.

The Lord Jesus himself warned of false teachers and even false christs (Matt. 7.15, 24.5, 11), as did other New Testament writers (Acts 20.29-30, 2 Tim. 4.3-4, Titus 1.13-14, 2 Pt. 2.1-3, 3.17, 1 John 4.1-3, Jude 4, 11-12). These people are serving their own bellies (1 Tim. 6.3-5), not the Lord and his people.

¹⁹For your obedience has reached to all. Therefore I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise in the good and pure in the evil.

Paul commends the Romans for their obedience to the Lord and rejoices over that, but he also exhorts them to be wise in good things and pure when it comes to evil. We must all be on the alert, for Satan in the cleverest of liars (John 8.44), knows all about our strengths and weaknesses, and knows how to get at us when we least expect it.

²⁰But the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet quickly.

 Some translations of the Greek translate this word as “soon,” but I believe it should be “quickly.” I often hear that Jesus is coming soon, but it has been nearly two thousand years since he has here bodily. Like many I believe that we are probably in the last days, but we do not know how long the last days will last. I believe the verse should be translated as I have it here:  God “will crush Satan under your feet quickly,” that is, we do not know how long it will be, but when it does come it will be quickly. We do not know when Jesus will come. But when he does come, it will be like lightning (Matt. 24.27: “For as the lightning comes out from the rising of the sun and shines to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.“ So we should always be ready. There will be no time to get ready when he comes. In the same way the crushing of Satan under our feet will be quick, instant (Rev. 20.9-10:

And they went up on the breadth of the earth and encircled the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from Heaven and consumed them. ¹⁰And the devil who deceives them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where also the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night into the ages of the ages).

The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

Just so you know, from this point to the end of Romans the Greek manuscripts have a multitude of differences. It seems that some parts of what is in our translations perhaps were not originally written by Paul, but were added by others later. Those called scholars in the New Testament disagree on what should be in and what should be left out. It seems to me that the questions cannot be answered, but that everything here is biblical, so the wise course is to take it as we have it. That is why some of the verses here are in brackets, [ ]. This indicates that some of it is doubtful in the Greek manuscripts.

²¹Timothy my fellow worker greets you, and Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen. ²²I Tertius, the one having written the epistle, greet you in the Lord. ²³Gaius greets you, the host of me and all the church. Erastus, the steward of the city, greets you, and Quartus the brother.

In this chapter Paul has been sending greetings to many in Rome that he knew. Now he sends greetings from some who are with him to the Romans. At least some of Paul’s letters were not written by his own hand, but by someone he was dictating to. That is the case here: Tertius was the one who did the actual writing. In 1 Cor. 16.21 we have Paul writing, “The greeting of Paul in my hand,” suggesting that someone else wrote the rest of it. Col. 4.18 says, “The greeting in my hand of Paul. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you,” another indication of someone else doing the writing. We have the same thing in 2 Thess. 3.17.

[²⁴The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.]

Rom. 16.20b says, “The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” We have the same statement here, causing some to believe that only one should be here.

[²⁵Now to him being able to strengthen you according to my good news and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according the revelation of the mystery having been kept secret in times of ages, ²⁶but now having been made manifest through the prophetic Scriptures and the command of the eternal God, having been made known to all the Gentiles for obedience of faith, ²⁷to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory into the ages. Amen.]

Paul closes with a magnificent benediction. He glorifies the one “being able to strengthen you,” and the good news from that God and “the preaching of Jesus Christ.” He states that all this comes from the mystery that was kept hidden for ages, but is now revealed through the prophets, who themselves did not understand it (1 Pt. 1.10-12). But now it has been revealed not only to the prophets and to Jews, but to all the Gentiles for their obedience of faith (see Eph. 2.11-22). To this God who is also the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory into the ages. Amen. Amen and amen!

Copyright © 2023 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved. You may share this work with others, provided you do not alter it and do not sell it or use it for any commercial purpose. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Also, you must include this notice if you share it or any part of it.

Old Testament quotations are the author’s updates of the American Standard Version.

Quotations from the New Testament are the author’s translations.