Before everything else I’d like to take this time to recall all we’ve discussed, ever since we cracked the book of Romans open.
The Wrath Of God On Unrighteousness
In Romans 1, we discussed how the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe… but note that the rest of the chapter discusses a very distinct perspective, on unrighteousness and on the consequent wrath of God.
We’ve considered that the very root of all unrighteousness is the ‘suppression of the Truth’, based on verse 18. We’ve see how, even at the beginning of time and at the garden of Eden, the deception of the serpent was not without the suppression of the Truth – ‘You shall not surely die…’, he said.
Adam and Eve disobeyed, sin entered this reality, and death reigned in this world… But, we’ve considered how, if the wages of sin is death, then a main root of sin is suppression of the Truth.
We’ve also took notice of how the wrath of God can also be 4 words, repeated at least 3 times in that same chapter: ‘God gave them up’. When one is left alone to suffer the full extent of the suppression of Truth, that’s the wrath of God.
The wrath of God is seen when one’s dishonorable passions, a debased mind, and/or the lusts of his/her heart in impurity continues to manifest in such terrible things such as the dishonoring of one’s body, the due penalty of shameless acts contrary to nature, and/or doing what ought not to be done (envy, murder, strife, etc.; see verses 29-32).
The Righteous Judgment Of God On All
If we see a perspective of the wrath of God in Romans 1, we see the judgment of God in Romans 2. We’ve seen how the wrath of God is how we bring death to ourselves, and in Romans 2 we see how God’s judgment is His rendering to each one according to His works (verse 6), and also His judging our secrets by Christ Jesus (verse 16).
In other words, the wrath of God is our suffering the consequences of what we do, and the judgment of God is His response to what we do – not only our deeds, but even our secrets, or our thoughts.
Romans Chapter 2 goes on to rebuke those of us who are quick to judge, simply by emphasizing that it is only God who HAS the right to make judgment, because we ourselves fall short of the Law – if it isn’t obvious that we fall short by our misdeeds or failure to do good deeds, we certainly fall short if even our hearts are judged.
The End Of Man And The Righteousness Of God
Romans 3 is where Paul delivers the exclamation point that would completely bury us; It’s bad enough that we are stripped of all hope on ourselves before the wrath and judgment of God… but here, we also read how absolutely hopeless we are already, even before taking wrath and judgment into consideration!
Whether we are Jews or Greeks, we ALL fall so short – Verses 10-18 point out how, on our own, we aren’t righteous, we don’t understand, nor do we seek for God. On our own, even without considering wrath and judgment, we’ve turned aside, we’re worthless, and we are incapable of doing good.
And if that isn’t enough, Paul goes on to share how our hearts are so full of iniquity that our mouths overflow with lies, curses, and bitterness. Our hearts anticipate death, the wages of sin so ingrained in our beings… that our mouths spew nothing out, but death, as an open grave.
Up until this time, Paul was talking about unrighteousness, in Chapter 1, he writes about unrighteousness’ deathly impact on us on its own. In Chapter 2, he writes about God’s righteous judgment for unrighteousness. In the majority of this third chapter, he writes about how we were doomed, because we were unrighteous to begin with.
But here’s the thing: at the very end of Romans 3 we start reading of the good news following the bad news:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe(!)Romans 3:21-22
I could imagine how Paul could not hold it back any further! For, see, in the face of the sheer hopeless state we were in, now we read, there IS righteousness that we CAN receive! And this righteousness (and consequently the salvation) is known primarily by 2 things: (1) it is apart from the Law, and (2) is is through faith in Jesus Christ!
Abraham’s Faith, A Promise Fulfilled
Romans 4 speaks in length about Abraham, who, when he was still Abram, was promised by the Lord that (1) he would be given descendants, not from an heir, but through a son of his own whom He would give, and (2) he would be given descendants as much as there were stars in the sky.
We read that Abraham believed, ‘and it was counted to him for righteousness.’ We’re also treated to another perspective to God’s faithfulness through Paul, who pointed out that Abraham was circumcised after he believed, in order that he would be ‘father’ of all the uncircumcised, so that when he WAS finally circumcised, he would also be the ‘father’ of all the circumcised, as well.
I remember pointing out, in at least two discussions of Romans 4, that the moment Abraham believed, God’s promise was significantly fulfilled, because that was when he became ‘father’ of all uncircumcised, right then and there.
In this chapter we see that a crucial aspect to our salvation is to believe – for as Abraham believed, so we also believe, that it would be counted to us for righteousness.
But who do we believe? Well, as mentioned in the second item, at the end of Romans 3, the righteousness we receive is through faith (believing) in none other than Jesus Christ!
Our Faith In Christ’s Obedience
In Romans 5, Paul presents the difference in impact, between the disobedience of Adam, and the obedience of Christ. I pointed it out earlier, and it needs to be emphasised that it was ultimately mentioned here first, by Paul: That, because of the disobedience of Adam, sin entered into this world, we were separated from God, and as a result, death reigned.
In the fullness of time, Christ demonstrated His obedience. While we were sinners, Christ came in love, saving us by laying His life down for us. And through His complete and finished work – His birth, death, resurrection and ascension – We have been reconciled to God; That is, through Christ we who were once sinners have been declared righteous (as in, restored to right-standing with God), and this righteousness results in eternal life.
In the earlier part of Romans 5, Paul further emphasizes that because we believe in Jesus Christ, it is through this faith that we have (1) justification by faith, (2) peace with God, (3) access by faith into His grace on which we stand, and (4) reason to rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Dead To Sin, Through Christ
In Romans 5, Paul speaks of our reconciliation to God, and our righteousness unto eternal life through Christ. In Romans 6, Paul speaks about the other side of the coin – how we’re set free from sin by way of our dying to sin.
In other words, if Romans 5 mentioned that through our faith in Jesus Christ, we have been made righteous unto eternal life, Romans 6 mentions how, through the same faith, we have died to sin, and it no longer has any power over us.
Paul presents a strong case against anyone who thinks that it is good for us to sin, for the reason that grace would abound. That would only work if we were merely separated from sin, or bound against it. No, Paul says – ‘by no means’, meaning it is not possible for us to keep sinning, simply because we have died to sin, which was, as Paul put it, our former master!
From here on out let us remember that the righteousness that we now have is, first, apart from the Law, and second, through faith in Jesus Christ. Let us also remember that this faith in Jesus Christ implies (1) our reconciliation to God, and peace, hope, grace, and our justification, as mentioned in Romans 5, and (2) our dying to sin, and sin losing its dominion over us, in favor of our being made alive to God through Jesus Christ, as mentioned in Romans 6.
Free From The Law, Through Christ
I felt it was necessary for me to mention this, because in Romans 7 we read more on how this righteousness comes to us apart from the Law.
Let’s talk about the Law. Paul says in Romans 7 that it was by the Law that sin came to life, or the Law gave life to sin… but on the other hand, he also argues in the same chapter that the Law itself is not sin.
So what gives? Paul clarified by saying that it was by the Law that he knew that his covetousness was sin. And while the immediate point to pick up there is that this proves how the Law gives life to Paul’s sin, we should also note that this is merely secondary to what the Law is – that is, the standard of God, or rather, an expression of God’s perfection and holiness.
The Law gives life to sin by way of being perfect righteousness, which points out ALL sin. It is perfection that naturally reveals all our imperfection. It is holiness that reveals our wickedness.
Here we see another aspect to our salvation, and, another aspect of our reconciliation to God, to be precise. In Matthew 5, Christ mentions that He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it – and He fulfilled the Law by offering Himself as a sacrifice for your sin, my sin, and the sins of the entire world. His sacrifice satisfied the complete requirements of the Law, and His resurrection serves as proof that the Law was satisfied.
If our being saved means that we’ve died to sin, and that sin no longer has dominion over us, here we see that it also means that we’ve been set free from the Law.
Unser Kampf (OUR Struggle)
The final verses of Romans 7 have a tendency of striking controversy – at least to me, personally, up until today. However, going through it, and seeing all that we’ve talked about up until now, I think it gives us a very condensed idea of what Romans projects as what we’re all going through in this reality.
We realize one side to our salvation – that is, we have died to sin and unrighteousness, we’ve been set free from the Law, and we’ve died to the flesh… but we still stumble against sin from the inside, and against the flesh from the outside, because they are still very much alive in this this fallen, wretched reality.
However, we ought to give God the glory, and to give Him praise – why? Because that’s only one side of our salvation. Lest we forget, Christ became sin so we would become His righteousness, and this righteousness implies that we have been reconciled, and reconnected to God. Sin separated us from God, and we died, but now Christ reconciled us to God, so we live, and we have eternal life.
We give God the glory, because again, through Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit – and Christ reminds us that this Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth that leads us to all truth, but, more importantly, He is the Spirit that convicts the world – He convicts unbelievers of sin, the enemy of judgment, and He convicts US; He convicts us of righteousness!
This is true, even if we observe how contradictory our existence in this reality is – in that we do what we do not want to do, and we do not want to do what we want to do. But, though this is a factual observation, we still take heart!
Why? Because our minds live by the conviction of the Spirit, who reminds us of the Truth of our right standing with God, even if our bodies still occasionally make the mistake of listening and yielding to sin and the flesh.
Living Romans 1-7
As I reflect on all this, and as I put into mind everything that I’ve been going through in the recent weeks and months… I suppose, all the practical applications we can draw out from this summary can be squeezed and summarized into one word, or maybe two: Humility, and Prayer.
We shouldn’t revert to self-pity, but we should respond with a dash of humility in all of our dealings – with ourselves, and with others – knowing just how terribly glorious our God is, and how absolutely hopeless we once were, without Christ.
With humility, we wouldn’t be so quick to puff our heads, or to listen and believe in our own hype, knowing that we were less than nothing – and, in fact, it ought to humble us so much more to realize, just as the writer of Psalm 8 expressed: Who ARE we, that our Creator is so mindful of us??
I’m led to believe that the pinnacle, premier application of humility is prayer. We pray as thanksgiving, for Christ who gave everything for communication to be possible. We pray in dependence, acknowledging Christ, and trusting in God, who knows how small we are, and how big He is.
We pray for ourselves, humbly acknowledging His superiority; In prayer we proclaim our helplessness before the difficulties and complications, and we intentionally place our trust in our Father, who knows all there is to know, and who can do all that can be done.
We pray for each other primarily, before trying to figure things out on our own, acknowledging Him in all our works, that our plans would be established.
We humble ourselves, in celebration.
We pray, in celebration.
Of what, you ask?
Christ suffered the wrath of God, being forsaken at the cross.
Christ proved He took all of God’s righteous judgment by walking out of the tomb.
Through His resurrection, Christ has ultimately set us free from our hopeless state of sin.
After ascending into the heavens, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Apostles, and consequently upon all who believe in Christ.
This Holy Spirit convicts us, reminds us at every single moment we spend here: of all that Christ is, all that He’s done, as well as all that we are because of Christ, and all that we can do because of what He’s done.
Thank You, Lord.
(Epilogue)
I’m sorry, because my initial intention was to squeeze in a really concise summary before I went any further into Romans 8… but I guess I spent a little more time and words to get things clear in my own head. I’ll continue with the second part of Romans 8 at a later time.
It certainly works wonders to write because it clears things in my own head… but I pray I also made some sense to you, dear reader.
Oh, I’d like to mention here, before I forget – I’m very aware that I may have missed out on one, or two, or fifteen points as we went through these wonderful sections of Scripture… I apologize, but considering the sheer richness of these passages, there is simply not enough time to unwrap everything in such a short amount of time. I’m seeing now, how going as much as a week per Chapter may still not be enough.
But, of course, this gives us even more reason to go back to it at another time, when our circumstances are different, and our focus is surely on other things – for revelations suitable for the times and seasons.
Until the next post, I pray that we are all blessed with the fullness of God, through no less than His Son, Jesus Christ. To Him be all glory and honor, forever and ever… Amen, and amen.
Stay strong and stay vigilant.
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