Romans 5:12-17 ‘Death in Adam, Life in Christ’ Pt.1 (AKA The Big Parenthesis)

TEXT
Rom 5:12
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned--

• Sin came into the world because Adam sinned – notice he doesn’t say Eve here for some reason! And death only came because of sin.
• Note that this supports a literal view of Genesis…if sin came into the world by one man, then Adam was indeed one man, not a whole race of men.
• Note also that it says death spread to all men because all sinned. It doesn’t say because ‘all were born of Adam’. Again, this reminds us we are judged based on the sin we do.
• However, since he is setting Adam up as a type of Jesus, we need to realise that the reason he can say ‘all sinned’ is because we were born of Adam. That is, we sin because we are sinners. We inherit our sinful nature, and therefore we sin.

Rom 5:13
(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

• And here starts the big parenthesis, which ends at the end of verse 17! The parenthesis obviously deals with the immediately previous statement, which is that death spread to all men, because all sinned!
• When it says that sin is not imputed when there is no law (which there wasn’t until Moses), it does not mean that people did not sin before the law. It just means that there was no specific accounting of sin. You couldn’t break the law because there wasn’t one. But you could still fall short of the glory of God!

Rom 5:14
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

• Even without the law, death reigned (ie. people died) because of sin. Even people who didn’t do exactly what Adam did sinned in different ways and fell short of God’s perfect standard.
• Paul introduces the idea that Adam was a type of Christ. We start to see that they were very similar but completely opposite.

Rom 5:15
But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

• The ‘free gift’ is God’s righteousness, as explained in previous chapters.
• Adam’s offense caused many (read ‘everyone’) to die, because the wages of sin is death. This sets up a ‘lineage’ of sorts, where everyone who is born of Adam (ie. everyone) is born into a lineage where death reigns. The opposite is Jesus, who started a lineage of life. All who are born into Jesus become heirs of this life.

Rom 5:16
And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.

• So we have two sides – one side that everyone is born into at physical birth which offers judgment and condemnation, and the other is a gift which results in us being right with God.
• Note that the free gift came from many offenses. Indeed, there were many sins that led to the crucifixion of Christ. But good intended them all for our infinite good!

Rom 5:17
For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)

• Ah! The end of the parenthesis. Here we see one of Paul’s favourite types of arguments – if such and such, then so much more Such and Such! In this case, we have that we recieved death from Adam, a mere man, and then so much more we have life through Jesus Christ, who was so much more than a mere man! If we think of how completely death reigns in us before Christ – it is fairly dominant. No-one can escape it, we all experience it in our relationships and pretty much daily we are reminded of it. Furthermore, it affects everything, causing decay and suffering. Then, life through Christ is much more dominant than this, because we receive it from One who is much more powerful! This will of course be ultimately true in heaven, where life will be eternal and blissful, but the firstfruits of this life we have now, and we should be living it!

SUMMARY
Paul sets up the binary opposition of Adam and Christ. In Adam we receive death through sin. We become heirs of Adam at birth and with that we are lumped with these unwanted ‘gifts’. However, Jesus came and we can be born into His line, where the gift is the righteousness of God – and this gift is so much more powerful than sin and death, because Jesus is much more powerful than Adam!

WHAT DO I LEARN?
Is my life a testimony to the fact that Jesus is more powerful than Adam? Do I reign in life through Jesus Christ? Or do I turn back to the ‘gifts’ of my old ‘father’? I want to live life as if Jesus has given me infinite grace and righteousness. Why? Because He has!

Romans 5:6-11 ‘Christ In Our Place’

TEXT
Rom 5:6
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

• I love this phrase - ‘without strength’. We had nothing going for us. There’s no possible way we could help ourselves. The whole point of the first 3 chapters or so was to say that everyone sinned, and now he says that we had no strength. There’s no way to defeat it.
• But God loved us and therefore came and died for the ungodly. The ungodly! Those who hated Him and had rejected Him.

Rom 5:7
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

• I always think of movies and stories where there is an ultimate sacrifice of one person’s life for the rest of the characters in the story, or for one special character. And how terrific this sacrifice is! And yet, it is always, as far as I can remember, for a group of people that love and support the person who sacrifices themself. This makes sense to us. If you love a person and they love you back, then if needs be you may have to make the ultimate sacrifice. Not many people are willing to go through with this, which is why it is such a good story when it happens.

Rom 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

• However, this story is not at all the story of God and man. For we were not supporters or lovers of God. In fact, though He loved us immensely, we turned away from Him, spat in His face and embraced things that He had made with the word of His mouth. Moreover, we rebelled against everything He stood for and against everything He had prepared naturally. We have seen this in previous chapters. In place of ‘sinners’ in this verse, I like to read ‘haters of God’, because that’s what sin is. And yet, the beauty of it all is that it was in this state, that Christ came and died a horrible death to save us. Surely we couldn’t turn that down…

Rom 5:9
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

• This always interests me – the distinction between justification and being ‘saved from wrath’. For indeed, they are distinct, though the come in the same package. For if we are justified, then it’s as if we have never sinned, and God could not justifiably pour out His wrath on us! Thus, through faith we are justified, and reconciled to God, and thus we also are saved.

Rom 5:10
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

• Again, the two parts of Jesus’ work are seen in tandem here – the death and resurrection. We are reconciled and justified by His death, and saved by His life. I heard a good analogy one time, which was to do with this type of thing, although slightly different. It went like – if you saw a beggar on the streets with dirty clothes and no food, you might take him in. You might be kind enough to take his clothes off him. But that would not be very nice on its own! You would then proceed to give him new, nice clothes. Clean clothes. And you would feed him and give him rest as well. The same as this, with Jesus’ death our sins and dirt are taken from us, but in His resurrection, we are given new clothes – cleanness and a new way of life.

Rom 5:11
And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

• And what should this lead to? Joy! We should be immensely joyful in the face of all of this. A Christian life without joy means there is something deeply wrong. In the previous section we saw that the Christian glories in tribulation, and now we see that Christians have joy constantly availing them because of the new life they have in Christ.

 

SUMMARY
Paul offers encouragement to believers in the face of God’s wonderful love for us – in that while we were still sinners, haters of God, Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now His children who love Him, will He save us? Nothing is too hard or beyond God. And He is on our side more than ever. This leads him to conclude that we should be rejoicing!

 

WHAT DO I LEARN?
How easy it is to forget that God is near! How easy it is to forget that God is working for my good! How easy it is to mistrust His promises on the basis that I am no good! And yet, while I completely hated Him He came and died for me. Nothing can hold Him back now!

Romans 5:1-5 ‘Faith Triumphs in Trouble’

NOTES
Paul seems here to move from the objective facts of justification and faith to the more subjective workings of those in our lives. He focuses more on the individual, and his relationship with God.

TEXT
Rom 5:1
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

• Note that peace with God here is not conditional on anything except having been justified by faith. This peace he speaks of then is not inner subjective peace – calmness and serenity etc, but an objective peace. We are literally reconciled to God because of our justification through faith, and so He has no war with us anymore.
• Notably, this peace is offered to us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rom 5:2
through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

• Grace is God’s undeserved favour. Now, to a certain extent, everyone receives some of God’s grace, or all of us would be dead already. However, it is not this grace that this verse speaks of. It speaks of grace in which we stand. When we stand we aren’t moving. We’re going nowhere. So unless the grace moves, we’re going to be in it forever. So in effect this verse says that through Jesus we have access into God’s grace in which we can stand and never have it taken away from us! This also then is a ‘positional’ statement – it’s not necessarily that we always feel this grace or live accordingly, but rather that we are objectively standing in it.
• ‘Rejoice in hope of the glory of God’ is one of those statements that sounds really nice and which we pass over pretty quickly without grasping the true significance of it. First note the use of the word ‘hope’, which we will come back to. We rejoice through Jesus Christ in hope of the glory of God. Hope here doesn’t mean ‘hope’ as we use it today. It is not uncertain. Hope is looking forward to something yet to be unveiled, but something we know will be unveiled. And what do we hope in? Our future in heaven? All the nice things God will do for us? The salvation of the world? The reformation of our culture? Yes, all of these things, but none of them. It is the glory of God that we hope for. It is His glory that we must seek at all times, and His glory that we want to know. But we can’t know His glory, or hope for it, without Jesus Christ, and reconciliation to God.

Rom 5:3
And not only that,
but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;

• And that’s not all! All of these great things, and that’s hardly the beginning!
• We glory in tribulations – glory has something to do with truth. Glory is seeing something great for what it really is. Thus, the glory of God can be seen in the cross. The cross isn’t ‘shiny’, but it is glorious because it is the truth of who God is, and that is Great. Paul is saying that we can glory in tribulations, that is, we can reveal the truth about us, and we can see how great God has made us.
• John Macarthur has some good things to say about the words used in this and the next verse. Tribulations, according to Macarthur, is a word used for pressure, like pressing olives or grapes. They push us. Note that these are not the normal tribulations of every day life, these are special tribulations that God brings about for our development – we can see that in the context because Paul is talking about things we have through Christ Jesus.

Rom 5:4
and perseverance, character; and character, hope.

• Perseverance is like endurance. Without this ‘pressure’ we can’t know how long we will last under pressure! The more perseverance we have, the more we can hold. This is beneficial for a life doing God’s work!
• Character is apparently more literally translated ‘proven character’, since the word used is often translated ‘proof’. The word was used of testing metals to determine their purity. This is what God does to us – burns away the impure and leaves the pure. We all want that!
• The end result is hope. Now, I find this quite interesting, given that Paul says two verses previous that we already hope in the glory of God. That is, after being justified we immediately have hope in the glory of God…and yet the result of years of hard trials and perseverance is that hope! Maybe someone will be able to tell me why this is like it is. My idea at the moment is that the hope in verse 2 is a hope that we have of our future, and in verse 4 the hope is a hope that is fully realised in our hearts. This is a personal hope, a subjective hope. But in the end it is the same hope. We see this more in verse 5….

Rom 5:5
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

• Hope does not disappoint. Well, in our experience, hope is one thing that is likely to disappoint. Having hope in anything is a quick way to be disappointed, and disappointment is one of the worst things to go through (for me anyway). However, Paul says here that hope does not disappoint. Remember what hope he is talking about – Hope in the glory of God.
• Why does this hope not disappoint? Because it turns out He has already given us a foretaste of the fulfilment of that hope. He has poured out His love in our hearts to the point of overflowing. This is why the trademark of a Christian is love. If we don’t have love, there is no evidence that His love has been poured out in our heart – which it has!
• This love is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, one of His many many functions. If we deny that love and let it grow cold then really we are grieving the Holy Spirit!
• Pauls point is that we can hope and not be disappointed in the glory of God, because a part of it is already made manifest in our hearts – that is, the love of God. By knowing the Holy Spirit better and better, and walking in the Spirit, then the glory of God becomes more and more real to us. And all this because of God justifying us by faith through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ!

 

SUMMARY
Paul focuses in on some of the personal benefits of faith – hope and love! He shows that we can glory in tribulations because they effect hope in us, which doesn’t disappoint because we already have the deposit, which is love in our hearts.

WHAT DO I LEARN?
Love is very important. Tribulations are necessary and beneficial, and I should glory in them! More and more I want to reveal my true character by letting God strip away all that is impure and sinful.

Romans 4:19-25 ‘Abraham Justified By Faith’ Pt.2

TEXT
Rom 4:19
And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb.

• Still talking about Abraham’s faith here. Paul goes on to say what we summarised in the last section – Abrahams faith was not weak. That is, it wasn’t faith in the completely obvious – it was faith against hope. He was already 99 when he had a son, and Sarah was 86 – well beyond birthing age! Beyond that, Sarah was barren anyway, which meant she could never have kids even when younger. But see that it says Abraham did not ‘consider his own body’. The physical didn’t even enter his calculations – God said it, it must be true! That is faith.

Rom 4:20
He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God,

• See that faith brings glory to God. How does it do this? Well when we have faith we are looking beyond the purely physical, we look beyond ourselves and our own futile logic and see His glory and His truth. That is what kindles the faith in us. By having faith we are giving Him that glory that He inherently has.

Rom 4:21
and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.

• How often we lose it at this stage! We know God’s promises and we ‘trust’ them, but we don’t actually realistically physically expect Him to actually come through with them! And when He does, so often we attribute the result to our own hard work!

Rom 4:22
And therefore "it was accounted to him for righteousness."

• With this much more grounded definition of faith in place, Paul again asserts that this faith was accounted to him for righteousness. What does this mean? Righteousness comes through a faith which says yes to God through the stormiest of circumstances, the most unbelievable of promises and the longest of waiting times. If we have that faith – inspired by His glory – then it is accounted to us for righteousness!

Rom 4:23
Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him,

Rom 4:24
but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,

• In these two verses we see that God is sovereignly directing the paths of men – and indeed, inspiring the human authors of the Bible. In no other way could the account of Abraham’s justification by faith being meaningful to us be explained. That is, here Paul says that Abraham was just ‘imputed’ righteousness for his own sake, but also so that we would have an example of what justification means. Thus, God is looking 2000 years into the future while He is sitting in the tent with Abraham, promising Him a son (with Sarah laughing outside). And He inspired the author of Genesis to include that very statement so that we, 4000 years later, may benefit. To me, this is a clear claim of inspiration of scripture.
• Paul draws the parallel here. Whereas Abraham had faith in God’s promise to him, we are to believe in Him who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead. That is His promise to us. Faith in this remarkable (and completely physically unbelievable) act – faith against all hope, and faith that outlasts all trials, will be accounted to us for righteousness.

Rom 4:25
who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.

• ‘delivered up because of our offenses’ – Jesus was crucified because of our sin. He could only die because He took our sin upon Himself. Note that ‘delivered up’ is an active word. That is, Jesus wasn’t walking around and then found Himself crucified one day – no, it was the very plan of God, and the action of God the father to deliver him up to men. However, this death was not enough.
• ‘raised because of our justification’ – the fact that Jesus rose from the dead implies that he is able to justify us, because He is completely just. That death held no power over Him means that He had no sin – He had completely dealt with it and thus He had justified us. It proved that He is just, and the justifier of the ungodly.

 

SUMMARY
Paul concludes his assessment of Abraham’s justification by faith by first broadening the understanding of what faith really is – what it stands against and endures. He then remarks that if Abraham was justified so, then surely we are too, since God is the author of history and makes things happen not only for their own time, but also for the future. He finally draws the parallel of Abraham’s belief in God’s promise, and our own belief in God’s promise of justification through His glorious Son.

 

WHAT DO I LEARN?
I am again in awe at the complexity and beauty of God’s plan of redemption, and that 2000 years before coming to earth He would make a promise to a man in order to explain to us what faith is. Also, I am again seeing how closely knit the death and resurrection of Jesus were – how often we focus on His death without His resurrection!

Romans 4:13-18 ‘The Promise Granted Through Faith’ Pt.1

TEXT
Rom 4:13
For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

• God made a promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, and that from him a saviour would come – not because of the law but because of his faith. In fact, the law didn’t come til much later.

Rom 4:14
For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect,

• Why is the promise ineffectual if by the law?

Rom 4:15
because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.

• Because the law brings about wrath – ie. the law can only show up mistakes and therefore the promise is ineffectual. Through the law, nothing can be gained, only fault shown. Another way to say this is to say that without the law, there is no transgression – that is, you can’t trespass on someone’s property if they haven’t said it’s wrong to do so. You can’t go beyond the law and break it if it doesn’t exist.
• Of course, the law is written on our hearts as well!

Rom 4:16
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all

• So that God could give His promise to everyone, it had to be by grace – what a wonderful plan!
• It means that we can be Abraham’s sons as well – that is, we can be of the same faith as Abraham, we can belong to his promise.

Rom 4:17
(as it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations") in the presence of Him whom he believed--God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;

• In addition to fathering at least two physical nations (the Palestinians and Jews), Abraham is father to many people from nations all around the world by his faith.
• God gives life to the dead, in both a spiritual and physical sense, and calls things into being which up to that point had not even existed in thought. This is mind-boggling, because you try to imagine something that has never existed in any form similar to what you imagine! It is quite hard or probably even impossible. People are modifiers. We create by modification. We discover. But we do not create from nothing. But we are created from nothing.

Rom 4:18
who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, "So shall your descendants be."

• Remember that Abrahams faith was not a measly faith that he accepted God because of a good life and because that was the ‘thing to do’. Rather, God called him away from home to a strange land that he did not know about, told him to trust that he would bring him a son and make him into a great nation and then to top it off, asked him to have enough faith to sacrifice that son when he finally received him. Thus the phrase ‘contrary to hope’ is but a small taste of what Abraham was experiencing. He was not an extraordinary person, in that he still had the same human flaws as all of us. His faith was extraordinary at times though!

 

SUMMARY
Paul continues his example of Abraham, focussing on the promise of God to him – which led to our redemption through the blood of Christ. He received this promise by faith rather than by the law, which came after, and so should we. It also makes the point that faith is not always easy – in fact often it is against hope that we must have hope.

WHAT DO I LEARN?
I must remember that it is in the hardest of times that God is calling me to have faith – to put complete trust in Him. Sometimes the ‘hardest’ of times don’t represent particularly sad or turbulent times, but conclusions that we come to that carry weight, or things that are hard to give up but we know we must. Not all these things are bad things that we need to give up, but God is calling us to greater things – He is calling us to Himself.

Romans 4:9-12 ‘Abraham Justified Before Circumcision’

TEXT
Rom 4:9
Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.

• Paul again anticipates his Jewish audience and asks the question – if Abraham was made righteous by faith, then since he was circumcised, then do we have to be circumcised. To this question, he asks the question – was Abraham justified while circumcised or before?

Rom 4:10
How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.

• In fact, it was before Abraham was circumcised (as God commanded) that he is said to have been justified (in Gen 15:6). This then proves that righteousness is apart from both works and traditions/obedience.
• This carries through to today – there is no need for going to church, getting baptised, taking communion or doing anything else of either good or traditional nature as far as justification is concerned. Justification happens before any of those.

Rom 4:11
And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also,

• Circumcision was merely a seal of the righteousness of faith, that is, it was an outward show of the promise that God had given, and his acceptance of it. It was what sealed Abraham into his new life. For us, perhaps a similar idea is baptism. It is a public declaration of our faith which in some way constrains or seals us to move forward and grow with God.
• Abraham is the father of all who believe – even though there were those who believed before him, in some ways Abraham is our father because it was through him that Jesus came.

Rom 4:12
and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.

• Paul here makes it plain again that it is believing and walking in the steps of faith that brings us into the family, into the promise – not circumcision or an outward show or ritual.
• Interesting that he uses the phrase ‘walk in the steps of the faith’ – rather than just ‘have the faith’. It implies that having faith is a process as well, and as James says, having faith without works is dead. This is a nice balance.

 

SUMMARY
Paul extends his argument to religious forms and rituals, ie. circumcision. His argument is then that we are justified by faith alone – apart from both works and rituals (even if those rituals are in obedience to God). He is in no way denigrating the importance or need for circumcision amongst the Jews, but he is stressing that it plays no role in the act of justification, which is the promise that Abraham received. It is rather a seal of acceptance, much like baptism these days.

WHAT DO I LEARN?
I need to learn to rest on the forgiveness and grace of God for justification and all things – God loves us and by His grace He gives us what we need, through no merit of our own, and through no observance of rituals, traditions or even obedience. Traditions remind us of who He is and make us familiar with Him, and obedience stems from a willing and pure heart, but the initiation is always His unending grace. Thankyou God!

Romans 4:5-8 ‘David Celebrates The Same Truth’

Text
Rom 4:5
But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

• Why does Paul say ‘does not work’ here? Why doesn’t he just say – to him who believes on Him…Why does he add that he doesn’t do any work? Well I think he is trying to make a point to the stubborn Jews. He is trying to make a point that we have to give up the idea that we should be working towards justification. Faith lays aside works completely and says ‘I can’t do it!’
• Note that this does not mean that faith and works do not go hand in hand (as explained in James). It means that our attitude must be one of complete self-denial and turning away from our own self-righteousness. We need to give up working!

Rom 4:6
just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:

• Paul brings on another Old Testament example, another of the great men of Judaism. David. David had no reason to believe his works got him anywhere, given his act of adultery and subsequent murder (I mean, who among us can say they’ve physically done that! – I don’t actually want to know…). He knew he had sinned greatly, and so he knew that any righteousness he had was imputed to him by God. This means that it was freely given or set upon him. It was definitely apart form works.

Rom 4:7
"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
And whose sins are covered;

• The quote in this verse and the next is from Psa 32:1 and Psa 32:2 – written after his sin with Bathsheba.
• Interesting that he should use the word covered, which is what happened in the Old Testament when the sacrifices were made – God said he covered their sins by the blood of the animal (and so were ready to be completely taken away through the real efficient blood of Jesus). Our sins are no longer covered, they are separated from us as far as the east is from the west. They are completely forgotten. But David was obviously looking forward to the time when God would not merely cover but take away

Rom 4:8
Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin."

• The LORD does not impute sin to those He has forgiven, but His righteousness. All is from God. Nothing is of ourselves. David knew this intimately. Paul then has concluded that both Abraham and David, two of the most important Jewish fathers, had received justification and righteousness not by their works but from God through faith. And it is a blessing!

 

SUMMARY
Paul moves onto the second of his two Old Testament examples (before going back to the first), David. He shows that David receives righteousness from God alone and not by his own works, since he writes so right after a well-known and terrible sin.

WHAT DO I LEARN?
Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin! Thankyou oh my God of wonder and love!