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 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!

Jeremiah 8:8-9,11,20

Jeremiah 8 continues Jeremiah’s prophecy at the temple gates to those who are passing in and out of God’s house. He tells them that all those buried in Judah will be brought up and placed under the sun and moon and stars ‘which they have loved’ (vs. 2), referring to their idolatrous nature worship. In fact, when the nation was invaded by the Babylonians, the invading nation would ransack the tombs of Judah in search for buried riches, leaving the bones scattered over the land.

Jeremiah continues, proclaiming that Judah was guilty of not knowing when to turn back to God – when even birds knew when to turn around and migrate, to turn back. All the animals knew their seasons, and yet the Jews did not know the time of God’s judgment, which had been made abundantly clear to them. And thus we reach the reasons for their deception, namely, those who lead them and teach them had been deceiving them!

‘How can you say, ‘We are wise,
And the law of the LORD is with us’?
Look, the false pen of the scribe certainly works falsehood.
The wise men are ashamed,
They are dismayed and taken.
Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD;
So what wisdom do they have?’ (Jeremiah 8:8-9)

What dire words. Those who lead and teach God’s people are teaching falsely. They are leading their own people astray with what they teach. And they do it so well that the people don’t even notice. The people still say ‘We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us’. They think they are wise! No doubt the scribes used human wisdom in their writings and teachings. So why were they deceitful?

‘Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD; so what wisdom do they have?’

If we do not trust the very words of God, what wisdom can we even think we have? If we don’t listen to the word God has given us directly, then how can we call ourselves wise? It doesn’t matter that we might be well versed in all the classic philosophers, know the entire works of Spurgeon, pastor a church of a thousand people, and have written books that have ‘helped’ people in every walk of life. It doesn’t matter that our techniques for worship or evangelism are the most well-researched and most ‘effective’ known. It doesn’t matter that we might have a doctorate and be able to write essays and books arguing certain theological points. It only depends on whether we accept forthright the word of God. For He is of infinite knowledge and wisdom. To accept His knowledge and study His word, led by the Holy Spirit is wisdom.

What do you do when faced with a tricky situation? Who do you turn to? Do you accept the human wisdom of a friend? Do you read a self-help book? Do you tackle the problem in your own mind, using previous circumstances as a guide? Or do you turn to the word of God?

Now I am not trying to say that your friends, books, and even you, don’t give advice based on the word of God in the first place. But to be sure, in most cases, they don’t.

Why do we not accept the word of the LORD? Why do we so often use our own flawed wisdom? For two reasons that I can think of right now:

1) The word of the LORD is hard to accept. It is often scathing and shocking. It is abrasive. It is challenging, and sometimes goes against our basic intuition.

2) Using our own wisdom satiates our desire for power and intellectual supremacy. In other words, using our own wisdom makes us feel good about ourselves. Human wisdom is often the source of a warm fuzzy feeling inside. It makes us feel good, but as verse 11 says:

‘For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly,
Saying ‘Peace, peace!’
When there is no peace.’ (Jeremiah 8:11)

Now, if we are Christians, a habit of maintaining human wisdom and neglecting God’s word is unhealthy at best. In dealing with situations in life, it can only be harmful, and lead away from God’s will for us. But with respect to non-Christians, it is much, much more dangerous. For if we, as Christians, make a habit of using human wisdom, then we deceive non-Christians. We cannot save them with our own wisdom! It is impossible! God’s word is hard hitting, sharp as a double-edged sword, and His Spirit convicts. Taking that out of the equation, it is like throwing pillows at people and expecting them to be bowled over! And the dire result is recorded in Jeremiah:

‘ “The harvest is past,
The summer is ended,
And we are not saved!”’ (Jeremiah 8:20).

Isaiah 61:3

‘To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.’ (Isaiah 61:3)

These are beautiful words in and of themselves. But it reminds me of what I have to offer to God, and what He has given me through Jesus Christ. All I have to offer is ashes, sadness and a spirit of heaviness. I have nothing, nothing that I can do myself. Nothing that I can call my own. And yet Jesus has given me beauty, garments of praise, the oil of joy! It is His gift to us, so that we can be steadfast (like trees) in righteousness, so that He can be glorified. So that He can be glorified! What a gift! This is why the Gospel is the Good News. Or at least part of the reason.

Let us not take this gift for granted. Because He has given it to us so that we may be called trees of righteousness, so that we may be pillars of goodness in the world.

Isaiah 59:1-2

‘Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened,
That it cannot save;
Nor His ear heavy,
That it cannot hear.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will not hear.’ (Isaiah 59:1-2)

As Christians, God has saved us. And nothing we can do will shorten His hand or render Him unable to hear our plea. But our continuance in sin separates us from Him as regards our ‘walk with the Lord’. It is not that He cannot hear us, or help us, it is that He will not while we are turned away from Him. Let us seek the Lord in all we do, and turn to Him, repent, when we know we are sinning.

Isaiah 49:6

‘Indeed He says,
‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’’ (Isaiah 49:6)

This made me very happy. We are the gentiles, of course. Here it is saying that Jesus, the Messiah, the Servant, was considered too great to just be salvation to the Jews. It was too small a thing just to save the Jews. It wouldn’t befit the glory of the Son to only save one nation. His glory demanded that He be a light to the Gentiles, that is us, as well. How wonderfully we have benefited from the glory of God!

Isaiah 43:2,25-27

Isaiah 43 is a big chapter and has so much in it that it is impossible to give even a summary overview worthy of it in a page or two. There are so many truths that are wonderful to see. It is a chapter of God reassuring Israel that He will carry them through. He will restore them, and always love them. It is the chapter where the song ‘fear not’ comes from (I love that song!). As we realize, when we sing the song, we make the application to ourselves, whereas the intended audience was originally Israel. God has redeemed them, called them by name. Notice that it doesn’t say ‘I won’t let you pass through waters or rivers or fire’. It says

‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you.’ (Isaiah 43:2)

It is God’s promise of faithfulness through all manner of ill. Through whatever life throws at us, or we throw at ourselves (which I think happens much more often, don’t you?). It tells the Israelites that their descendants will live all over the world, to the East, West, North and South, but that God will faithfully gather them all back to Israel, His chosen people. That is yet to happen in fulfillment. The whole chapter emphasizes and re-emphasizes God’s faithfulness, His goodness, His mercy and His love towards Israel. He says He will do anything for them. He reminds them of His promise to ‘do a new thing’, that is, come as the Messiah to save them form their sins once and for all!

But He comes back to the unfaithfulness of Israel. It is a great contrast. The first 21 verses are a massive testament to God’s faithfulness, and then the last 7 verses show the unfaithfulness, the sinfulness, of Israel. But they joy is in verse 25:

‘I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for my sake;
And I will not remember your sins.
Put me in remembrance;
Let us contend together;
State your case, that you may be acquitted.’ (Isaiah 43 :25-26)

God blots out our own sins for His own sake. We must see that, I think. All glory is for God. All honour and praise is to God. What God does, He does for Himself, for He is the only One worthy of it. Does this mean He doesn’t really love us? No, not at all! It honours Him that He loves us! We love Him because He first loved us. Our love of God gives Him praise and glory, and that is our purpose. I don’t find any dissatisfaction in that.

So, how can God blot out our transgressions?

‘Your first father sinned,
And your mediators have transgressed against Me.’ (Isaiah 43:27)

God is of course talking to Israel here. So what have we over Israel? Who is our mediator? God Himself! Jesus never transgressed, so He is our perfect mediator, worthy of taking God’s punishment.

All praise to God! Such a wonderful promise He has given us. Such a wonderful hope. Let us not cease in praising Him, day and night, both with our tongues, thoughts, and actions. Anything else is stubble in the fire.

Isaiah 24:2

When I look at the heading for chapter 24 of Isaiah yesterday, I expected it to start with ‘the judgment of…’. I was right. However, this chapter was a little different in that the heading was ‘the judgment of the earth’. It is like Isaiah has spent the last 10 chapters outlining the destruction of various nations in the contemporary world, and then in chapter 24 generalizes and says that really the whole earth is going down, or ‘fading away’.

This is obviously a prophecy of the end of the age. A prophecy of the very last days when the whole earth will be destroyed and we will live in heaven or hell, eternal places.

God goes to great lengths to show the parity with which He judges all men (and women) in that last day.

‘And it shall be:
As with the people, so with the priest;
As with the servant, so with the master;
As with the maid, so with her mistress;
As with the buyer, so with the seller;
As with the lender, so with the borrower;
As with the creditor, so with the debtor.’ (Isaiah 24:2)

It lists many high-low relationships that men have come to recognize. God’s point is that on that last day, everyone is the same. It doesn’t matter if you have status or no status. Any earthly title or label means nothing in that last day. Note however that it doesn’t have ‘heavenly’ titles. It doesn’t say ‘as with the sinner, so with the righteous’ or ‘as with the evil, so with the pure’. All the labels are man-made. External. And in the last day, none of them will help of hinder one iota.

And so for us, the challenge is this: if God does not judge based on man-made labels, why should we? When we see a rich person and a poor person, do we make distinctions? When we see a professor and an illiterate, do we make distinctions? Yes, we do, and sometimes for good reason. For example, if we were to tell them the gospel, we would emphasise different points with the rich person than the poor person, and we would say it much simpler for the illiterate than the professor. But do we judge their importance, or their need for the gospel by their label? Well, I am inclined to believe that we do. But we should not. All men and women need the gospel equally, for all will be judged equally at the end of the age.

So today, let us not get caught up in the power-plays of this world, and the labels that man makes for itself. Let us see everyone as helpless sinners, desperately needing God’s forgiveness.

Isaiah 17:10-11

Isaiah 17 is a proclamation against Syria and Israel which judges them for allying themselves against Judah and Assyria (who of course weren't allied). Interestingly, Northern Israel is promised a remnant like Moab. This time however, it is for an entirely different reason. God had promised that Israel would always be a nation, and so to keep His promise, a remnant must always remain. A part that applies directly to us is verses 10 and 11

'Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation,
And have not been mindful of the Rock of your stronghold,
Therefore you will plant pleasant plants
And set out foreign seedlings;
In the day you will make your plant to grow,
And in the morning you will make your seed to flourish;
But the harvest will be a heap of ruins
In the day of grief and desperate sorrow.' (Isaiah 17:10-11)

Notice first who He is talking to. He is talking to Israel, because God is the God of their salvation and the Rock of their Stronghold. But He says they have forgotten about Him and are not mindful of Him. The context is provided by the next few lines. ' Therefore you will plant pleasant plants and set out foreign seedlings;' . They have forgotten about Him specifically when they do things. And planting plants is always a good thing, intended for good reward. So Israel is accused of not remembering God when they try to do 'good' things. And what is the consequence?

'In the day you will make your plant to grow,
And in the morning you will make your seed to flourish;
But the harvest will be a heap of ruins
In the day of grief and desperate sorrow.' (Isaiah 17:11)

Where they try their hardest to make the seeds flourish to come out as a plant, the harvest is but a heap of ruins. Without God, their best efforts avail to nothing. Now this would probably be prophecied directly to their alliance with Syria, which was an act which they thought would benefit them, but in doing which they left God out of the equation. Hence the prophecy directly predicted the failure of the alliance and the destruction of Israel and Syria.

But it has much significance for us as well. Many times we talk about evangelizing as 'planting the seed'. If we leave God out of the equation, if we water that seed with our own intellect and make it flourish with our own arguments and thoughts, then inevitably the harvest will be a disaster. For God is the only person who can save anyone. It will not in the end be because of us that a person is converted. We can only tell him what we know and let God take care of the rest. That is NOT to say we don't try our hardest to save anyone. God, may be looking for a little effort from us to work His wonders Himself. But we should ALWAYS realise that it is God who saves. Never forget to include God in anything you do, or else the harvest, or the reward for that thing will be failure.