Lesson 8: Who Is the Man of Romans 7?

Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic

Redemption in Romans
Lesson 8: Who Is the Man of Romans 7?

 

Is the man of Romans 7:7-25 a godless man, the unconverted man? Or is this chapter describing the experience of the normal born-again Christian? Some even say that Paul is here describing his own frustrating experience as a believer in Christ.

Certainly, Romans 7 portrays a man in difficulty, a man in distress, a man who seems doomed to defeat and failure in his spiritual life. He appears caught up in a conflict between his own sinful tendencies and desires on the one hand, and the just requirements of God's holy law on the other. We see here an account of temptations resisted but not overcome, of goals not reached, of purposes unfulfilled, of ideals held but not attained, of a victory that is greatly longed for but not gained, of a conflict that is terrible and that regularly ends in defeat. We see pictured here the experience of one that might be described as a born loser, a frustrated, defeated man. What a predicament! Who is this man, who apparently for years is unable to achieve, who lives in frustration and defeat?

Two main views have been held through the centuries: first, that the man of Romans 7 is the unregenerate, unconverted, carnal man whose heart is naturally in rebellion against God and His law. The other view is that the man of Romans 7 is Paul himself in his regenerate, converted experience, after he has come to know Christ. If this is true, then it is evidence that victory over temptation and sin is not available to Christians in this life. If Paul could not stop sinning, even through the power of Christ, it proves that no one can stop sinning.

The problem we encounter with both these lines of thought is that neither one stands up well under investigation.

Do unregenerate sinners confess that God's law is "holy, and just, and good" (7:12)? Do they acknowledge that God's law is spiritual, but that "I am carnal" (vs. 14)? Do unregenerate men say, "The good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do (vs. 19)? Do unregenerate men say, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man" (vs. 22)? Most unregenerate people hate the law of God, and love sin. They will, not to do good, but to do evil. They certainly do not delight in the law of God after the inward man.

On the other hand, if the born-again Paul is writing about himself, why would he say, "I am carnal" (vs. 14) and then a few lines later write, "the carnal mind is enmity against God" (8:7)? Why would Paul say "I am sold under sin" (7:14), contradicting what he just wrote about "being then made free from sin" (6:18)? Why would Paul say that he found it impossible to stop doing the evil he hated (7:15-23) and in the same discussion write "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (8:4)?

Why would Paul describe himself as being "in captivity to the law of sin" (7:23) and in the same discussion write "but now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness" (6:22)? The idea that Paul just couldn't stop sinning, that he couldn't quit swearing, lying, committing adultery, doesn't harmonize with his other writings: 2 Corinthians 5:17, 10:5; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 3:20, 4:23 and 24; and especially Galatians 5:16, "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh."

Are there no other alternatives? Yes, and it is a little idea derived from the 1888 message on the two covenants. Paul is describing the frustrations and defeats that inevitably follow those living under the old covenant.

Paul sums up the reason for defeat in Romans 7:25: "So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." Ego autos [I myself] would never be used to describe a joint effort or action, or a cooperative relationship between two persons [Christ and the believer]. It means emphatically, I alone. In Romans 7:25 it means I without Christ. It vividly describes a man under the old covenant, trying in his own strength to obey God's law and become righteous. This was ancient Israel's problem with their old covenant promise. "And why? Simply because Israel relied not on faith but on what they could do" (Rom. 9:32, Moffatt).

"The Man of Romans 7" is neither the converted or the unconverted Paul per se, but the corporate "I" of the fallen, sinful human race apart from Christ: this is the predicament of fallen humanity. "In me ... dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. 7:18). If "no good thing" is there, as I am part of the corporate body of Adam, all evil could dwell there. Nobody else is intrinsically any worse than I am.

George I. Butler, one of the leading brethren who opposed E. J. Waggoner's view of the two covenants, wrote in the Review and Herald, "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled by us," instead of "... fulfilled in us" (Rom. 8:4). [1] Ellen G. White on numerous occasions, including in Patriarchs and Prophets, pages 370-373, endorsed Waggoner's view of the covenants.

The great mass of Seventh-day Adventist church members worldwide who have come out of the world, are "converted" in the sense that they have been baptized and go to church Sabbath after Sabbath, but who know no victory over sin and are burdened by sinful old covenant fear which motivates their trust in God.

The problem that God has to deal with is "indwelling sin" in His people today, not Adam's condition in the Garden of Eden. The remnant church is "lukewarm." It worships every Sabbath; but Laodicea is forced to confess, "That which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good [Laodicea has long "consented" that the law is good!]. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. ... for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not" (Rom. 7:15-18).

The sinless Adam had no such problem. Merely for Christ to redeem Adam's failure and stop with such a victory would mean that the church is doomed to perpetual lukewarmness, and the problem of sin that dwells within and compels us to sin can never be solved. Hence the incarnate Christ must "condemn sin in the flesh," "abolish in His flesh the enmity" (Rom. 8:3; Eph. 2:15), which the sinless Adam never had to do.

While the old covenant was the promises of the people to obey God in their own strength, the new covenant is God's promises to us. God's covenant and His promises are one and the same. We need not make promises to God, but only to accept His promises to us. We accept these promises by faith, and this faith, being a heart response to Christ's love revealed on Calvary, is a saving transaction. This faith that saves is a "faith which worketh [is motivated] by love" (Gal. 5:6). Thus this faith, which reconciles us to God, also reconciles us to His law, and thus makes us obedient to His law and will.

--Paul E. Penno

Endnote:
[1] George I. Butler, "The Righteousness of the Law Fulfilled by Us," Review and Herald, May 14, 1889, pp. 313, 314 (emphasis added).

Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson will be on the Internet; please check his YouTube channel.

"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm

RR

Raul Diaz

https://about.me/raul.diaz

Lesson 7: "Overcoming Sin"

Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic

Redemption in Romans
Lesson 7: "Overcoming Sin"

 

Are we in the midst of the historical crisis of the ages? Yes! The return of Christ is being delayed. Our Lesson on "Overcoming Sin" is very serious!

A father may have a heavy problem trying to support his family, but the little child has no understanding of it that hinders or shadows his play. The little child can sense only his own individual suffering of hunger. As it says, his "personal metabolism allows" no more. He can never "splice into" his father's anguish, or "feel a spasm of [his] pain, [or] a prick of [his] woe." A little child cannot "feel corporately" what a parent feels corporately for him.

But a woman who is grown up "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness" of a man (see Eph. 4:13) can feel corporately for him if she loves him as a bride loves a husband. Could it be that our cosmic problem is troubling to the heart of God because we are that prophetic "woman" who is still in the kindergarten state of heart and has resisted "growing up"? Can we not yet corporately share the heart-burden her Savior feels? Is our concern still fundamentally only self-centered? Do we still consider (as we have in the past) that our own individual, personal salvation is the greatest concern in the universe? Or can we begin to sense a concern for Christ Himself?

His name is still "Emmanuel, ... God with us" (Matt. 1:23). He is still one of us in humanity as well as one with the Father in His divinity. Ellen White declared in 1904 that as the consequence of the dark history of 1888-message-rejection "in a great degree," "the disappointment of Christ is beyond description" (Review and Herald, Dec. 15). The Loud Cry has been long delayed.

Our lesson this week lifts our thoughts above our preoccupation with our own salvation to the possibility of sensing a concern for Jesus in the great controversy for His sake, beyond our little sake.

"Christ felt corporately at the Cross" all the combined anguish of humanity. But is it fair that we sense no corporate involvement with Him in His anguish and His sacrifice--not that in any way we assist in our personal salvation, but our minds and hearts can begin to appreciate what it cost Him to save us. We must not be content to remain forever in our kindergarten comprehension. The "most precious message ... the Lord sent to His people" in 1888 began to emphasize that heart-concern for Jesus as transcending our selfish concerns in this "great controversy."

Paul was deeply impressed that Christ expects, or at least hopes, that those for whom He died the second death will "come out" of the egocentric milieu of "Babylon" with its Old Covenant radius of self-concern, and begin to "feel a spasm of His pain, a prick of His anguish." "Know ye not," Paul says, "that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?" That must mean some kind of personal involvement. "We are buried with Him by baptism into death. ... We have been planted together in the likeness of His death. ... Our old man is crucified with Him. ... If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him" (Rom. 6:3-8).

"I am crucified with Christ," he tells the Galatians (2:20). It's over and over "with Him." That is corporate involvement on the part of believers. It is in the sense of heart appreciation, entering "into" His experience by something the Bible calls "faith," heart-involvement with the Son of God in His divine career as Savior of both the world and of the universe. "The government" of the universe is "on His shoulders" (Isa. 9:6; we can't "lift," but we can appreciate the weight He carries!).

A young pastor just out of the theological seminary, sincere and earnest, was interested in preaching the gospel as Good News to his congregation. He had a concern: is there a danger in preaching too much about the cross, and the grace of Christ, and His love, and not balance that by preaching also enough about the law, and obedience, and duty? He doesn't want to be pastor of a lazy congregation who take advantage of "cheap grace" and clothe their religion with a thin veneer of love and grace which covers hypocrisy.

Should we believe what the Bible says: "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Rom. 5:20); "cheap grace" is a counterfeit message, a detour around the atonement of Christ; you can't preach too much about the genuine grace that "abounds much more" than all the sin the devil can heap upon a congregation. If what Paul says is "the preaching of the cross" (1 Cor. 1:18) is clearly presented to a congregation, sin and hypocrisy cannot flourish among them because that grace conquers sin and eradicates it. The "power" is in the gospel itself, not in the law (see Rom. 1:16). And Paul says, Don't doubt, pastor! "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. ... Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace?" Says Paul: That's impossible! (See Rom. 6:14, 15).

Being "under grace" is different than many superficial people imagine: it means you are under a new motivation imposed upon you by a deep heart-appreciation of what it cost the Son of God to save you from hell itself. There is where you see "the breadth, and length, and depth, and height" of the love of Christ at His cross (Eph. 3:18). That motivation is far stronger than all the fear-motivation you can use to assail your congregation.

The pure, true gospel is not a perfect so-called "balance" between faith and works; it is a message of faith which works. How many "good works"? Infinitely more than legalism can ever produce! Don't be afraid to preach salvation by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8, 9).

--Paul E. Penno

Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at: https://youtu.be/EX0V3aFNa50

"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm

RR

Raul Diaz

https://about.me/raul.diaz

Lesson 6: Adam and Jesus

Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic

Salvation by Faith Alone: The Book of Romans
Lesson 6: Adam and Jesus

 

We're privileged to share with you a Bible study on Romans 5, the topic of this week's Sabbath School lesson, written by Robert J. Wieland. He titled the study: "What Jesus Christ Has AlreadyDone For Us All." We realize it's considerably longer than our regular Sabbath School Today, but we hope that it will give you a deeper understanding of Paul's "big idea" of what Christ accomplished on His cross.

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Paul's Romans chapter 5 should begin with the last verse of his chapter 4: "[Christ] was given up to death for our misdeeds, and raised to life for our justification" (4:25); this leads into his chapter 5. In his inspired thinking, Paul sees that the first person plural, possessive pronoun, "our," means everybody--the entire world, not just the church. John agrees. He says that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son ..." (John 3:16).

Ellen G. White has told us that when we preach we should preach "big ideas." [1] In Romans 5 the apostle Paul has a very "big idea" that he wants to get across to us: Jesus Christ has not only died for us all; He has done more! He has judicially, legally justified us all "in Himself." Yes, the whole world! That means more than merely saving us to be justified; it means to be re-made in our hearts and minds spiritually into the image of Jesus. It is the most cataclysmal change that can come to any human, for it means total at-one-ment with the Son of God. Justification means the mind and the soul of the sinner changed into Christlikeness.

Paul couldn't come up with a bigger idea than this: in fact, Jesus has saved the world with all Paul's "much more" idea in full function. That doesn't mean that everybody is going to inherit eternal life, but it means that they could do so if they would cease their resistance of this much more abounding grace of Christ. And just to be saved is far less than the idea means.

The Eleven weren't thinking "big" enough to grasp Paul's idea; but the Samaritans got it. When Jesus talked with the woman at Jacob's well and she went and told her townspeople to come and meet Him, they declared, "This is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world" (John 4:42, King James Version). Earlier, the apostle John expressed the same idea, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son ..."

If the Samaritans were right (and they were!), that means that the Lord Jesus Christ, by virtue of His sacrifice on His cross, has justified every man in a judicial sense when he died on His cross, which means more than just saving them to live eternally; they live eternally justified. Let us look at Romans 5.

Romans 5:1: "Therefore, now that we have been justified through faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The "we" is the world, in Paul's thinking. Many either don't know it or don't believe it, but nonetheless, it is true that Christ saved the world in a judicial sense. It means that He gave Himself for the world and thus He bought the world. This does not mean that everybody is going to be saved at last in God's eternal kingdom if they don't want to be; they could be if they would receive the gift that Christ has given them; but many will not humble their hearts to receive what Christ has given them.

Ellet J. Waggoner, one of the 1888 "messengers," was able to grasp this truth when most of his brethren could not. He said: "There is no exception here. As the condemnation came upon all, so the justification comes upon all. Christ has tasted death for every man. He has given himself for all. Nay, he has given himself to every man. The free gift has come upon all. The fact that it is a free gift is evidence that there is no exception. If it came upon only those who have some special qualification, then it would not be a free gift. It is a fact, therefore, plainly stated in the Bible, that the gift of righteousness and life in Christ has come to every man on earth. There is not the slightest reason why every man that has ever lived should not be saved unto eternal life, except that they would not have it." [2]

Romans 5:2: "[Christ] has given us access to that grace in which we now live; and we exult in the hope of the divine glory that is to be ours." Because of Christ's work of justification we are "exulting" ever since, and will exult forever. Justification is eternal joy.

Unless Jesus had made that sacrifice on His cross, there would not be one laughing, happy person on earth; there would be no smiles. Those who will be lost at last will realize that every trace of joy they ever knew was purchased for them by a corresponding, equal anguish of the Son of God in His sacrifice on His cross; they went through life never realizing that truth and thus they forfeited the eternal gift. No one could know a moment of joy unless Christ had endured an equivalent, balanced, equal moment of anguish for them.

But now we have "access" directly to the throne of God. Christ has given that "access" to every human soul, which means that the door to eternal life is standing open to all. There is a "coming," yes, that we must do--but that "coming" is the same as simply believing the gospel. But whether we come or not, Christ has done something for every one and He has given everyone the gift of eternal life if they will but have what He gives. That truth humbles every honest heart; it reconciles every believing soul that has been alienated.

Romans 5:3: Blessings start pouring in immediately: "We even exult in our present sufferings, ... [and such] hope is no fantasy; through the Holy Spirit He has given us, God's love [agape] has flooded our hearts" (vs. 5).

Whether we are "worthy" or not, this is what the Lord Jesus does (and of course "we" are not worthy!). The Holy Spirit is a Gift given free to all; the Lord gives the Gift, but everyone receives the gift who will open the heart to receive Him, "who listens to [Him], watching daily at [His] threshold with his eyes on the doorway" (cf. Prov. 8:34).

Romans 5:4: The Lord has further given us the gift of "endurance," which is identical to His "approval." He is delighted when we cherish the faith and hope He has given us, like a chef is happy when we express appreciation of what he has prepared for us.

We must pause a moment and look at that word agape. It's the Greek word for love, but it is an entirely different idea than we know naturally. The love we have by nature loves people who are nice; God's agape loves people who are mean and bad. Our love depends on the beauty or value of the person whom we love; God's love creates value or goodness in the one whom He loves. There's where our hope lies!

Our love seeks a reward; Christ in His agape love gave up His reward and died our second death--that is, no light at the end of His tunnel. That was for Him an eternal and infinite sacrifice, which is why Revelation pictures such an end as "the second death" (20:6). It was for Jesus an infinite sacrifice when he endured the horrible guilt of the whole world. Jeremiah asks the plaintive question: "Is it nothing to you, you passers- by?" (Lam. 1:12).

Romans 5:5: And the hope we have "is no fantasy; through the Holy Spirit He has given us, God's love [agape] has flooded our hearts."

The agape "floods" every human heart willing to receive the blessing. But often the gift may be misunderstood initially, for with the gift of the Holy Spirit always comes the gift of repentance. Repentance is often thought of as a sad experience when in fact it is joyous for it means reconciliation with the Lord. You can't imagine a greater joy!

No one can initiate repentance on his own: "God exalted [Christ] ... to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins" (Acts 5:31, KJV). When the Holy Spirit gives you even the faintest touch of that precious "gift," cherish it; and let it grow in your heart-appreciation.

Romans 5:6: "At the appointed time, Christ died for the wicked." It's humiliating, but that's the word that describes those who have rejected the reconciliation that Christ has given them in Himself.

"Christ died." What does that mean? It was a different death than we know. The death that we know the Bible says is a "sleep." The two thieves crucified with Christ died; that means they merely went to sleep. They that "sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake," says Daniel (12:2). Was that the "death" that Jesus died? A mere weekend of sleep? (A weekend of sleep would be wonderful after one has endured the painful horror of being crucified!) No, it was far more, for Jesus died our "second death," the death that involved the veritable, eternal "curse" of God. On Jesus' part, it was His eternal love for us.

Someone may question--didn't He always know that He would be resurrected on the third day after His death on the cross? Yes, He walked in the light of that assurance all His sunlit life and throughout His ministry, until that moment on the cross when He screamed in unutterable anguish, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

Why did He scream so? Because the Father truly did forsake Him: "it pleased the Lord to bruise Him," says Isaiah 53:10 (KJV), an inexplicable statement except as we remember that the death that Jesus actually died was our death--the second death. It is hard to say it, but the reality is that the Father loved us more than He loved His only Son!

The fact that He was resurrected the third day does not lessen in the least the full commitment that He made on His cross; and the Father accepts the commitment for the deed.

As He died, Ellen White reminds us, "The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror." [3] Because the father accepts the commitment for the deed, "God raised Him to the heights and bestowed on Him the name above all names" (Phil. 2:9). That total commitment on Christ's part means that He actually died every man's "second death." Therefore that sacrifice of His has enabled the Father to treat "every man" as though he had never sinned! That is the judicial justification that Christ has achieved for every soul on earth!

All this glorious truth we are privileged to "comprehend" here and now, if we do not resist the Holy Spirit. Salvation exists in the realization of this glorious truth; if we don't resist the Holy Spirit who gives the gift, our eternal happiness begins immediately.

If we do resist and reject the gift (it's more than a mere offer!), then before the universe we choose to assume the name of "Esau." We take that name because his character has now become ours; like Esau, we have resisted the Lord's much more abounding grace. (You remember, Esau sold his precious birthright in exchange for some earthly pleasure, and cried buckets of useless tears the rest of his life; cf. Heb. 12:16, 17. May the Lord save us from doing that.)

Then, in the second resurrection, when the "books" are "opened," those who have likewise resisted and rejected the "birthright" gift given them will realize what they have done; in unutterable horror they will abhor themselves. They will again cry "to the mountains and the crags, 'Fall on us, hide us from the One who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb'" (cf. Rev. 6:15-17). They will at last realize who Jesus is, that He has been their infinite Saviour all their lives, and they have thrust Him from themselves.

That "wrath" is what justification by faith saves us "from." It's what Paul means: "Being now justified by [Christ's] blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him" (Rom. 5:9, KJV). What is that "wrath"?

Lambs do not exercise "wrath." They are known for the opposite. The phrase "wrath of the Lamb" therefore is arresting. We always picture Jesus as sweet and gentle (He would not harm a fly, would He!); but when His "wrath" is aroused--don't get in His way. The "wrath" of the Lamb of God who has been resisted and rejected--thus resulting in the loss of souls beyond our own--this arouses His intense indignation. Sweet, gentle, lowly, loving Jesus morphs into a tower of righteous divine anger--the most solemn and terrible that the universe can know.

Romans 5:7: "Even for a just man one of us would hardly die, though perhaps for a good man one might actually brave death ..." We think of Abraham Lincoln on the night of his assassination: if someone had known that John Wilkes Booth would pull a gun on him, someone might have intervened and taken it instead of the nation's beloved president who was needed to bind up the wounds of the nation's Civil War. But no, ...

Romans 5:8: "Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, and that is God's proof of His love towards us." The word "sinners" means people who are at enmity with God, and John says that such enmity is always murder: "Whosoever hateth his brother is [already] a murderer" (1 John 3:15, KJV). When we kneel before the Lord and confess our sins, that is the sin that has been the background of all of our sins!

No one of us can claim that if we had been there that Friday morning in Pilate's courtyard and the mob were yelling about Jesus, "Crucify Him!" that we would have stood up in front of them and said that if you crucify Him you crucify me too! No, none of us would have made ourselves so famous; our "enmity with God" of Romans 8:7 was there in our natural sinful hearts. The murder of the Son of God is the world's unconscious but real sin.

Romans 5:9: "And so, since we have now been justified by Christ's sacrificial death, we shall all the more certainly be saved ... by His life!" (vs. 10). Again, in his thinking Paul's pronoun "we" is the human race; his idea about Jesus is "big."

Christ has already done something for the human race. The Father sent Him down here with a job description--save that lost world! And just before His death, the Son of God tells Him, "I have glorified You on earth by finishing the work which You gave Me to do" (John 17:4). Father, I have saved the world!

This was no idle boast; the job had been done. And Christ did not die in vain; every soul can kneel and thank Him for doing it, for in so doing He actually saved every soul.

Romans 5:10: "If, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, now that we have been reconciled, shall we be saved by His life!" Again, the "we" is us; Paul's heart is not big enough to contain the joy that he senses for us all: wicked and mean as we are by nature, we have been "reconciled" to God by Christ's blood--not a work of fear or of grasping for reward--no; but our heart-appreciation for His love! That simple, that easy. But it does bring tears to our dry eyes.

Romans 5:11: "But that is not all: we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus, through whom we have now been granted reconciliation." To know that there is no sin, no guilt, no dark sorry story in the closet between yourself and the Lord, is joy indescribable!

David's psalm which he wrote after his sin with Bathsheba described "exulting" thus: "Happy is he whose offence is forgiven, whose sin is blotted out! Happy is he to whom the Lord imputes no fault, in whose spirit there is no deceit" (Psalm 32:1, 2).

Romans 5:12: "What does this imply? It was through one man that sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus death pervaded the whole human race, inasmuch as all have sinned."

That "inasmuch" is eph ho in the Greek--a virtually untranslatable particle of speech; the idea Paul is trying to express is that although we can blame Adam for the entrance of sin, in fact we must blame ourselves. We have all sinned like Adam sinned.

Romans 5:13: "Sin was already in the world before there was law [that is, Mount Sinai]; and although in the absence of law no reckoning is kept of sin, [still]. ...

Romans 5:14: "Death held sway from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned [exactly] as Adam did, by disobeying a direct command--and Adam foreshadows the Man who was to come [Christ]."

Romans 5:15: Now comes the point: "But God's act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam's wrongdoing [it is much more abounding!]. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many [that is everybody], its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many [that is, everybody!] by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ."

"Our beloved brother Paul" is wrestling his way through the grandest "big idea" anyone can think: the Lord Jesus Christ has done something beyond merely dying for everybody--He has justifiedeverybody!

He has not simply died for a race of rebels: He has morphed a race of rebels into a redeemed race of righteous people whose minds and hearts have been dramatically changed forever: they are now at one with Himself.

He has actually changed a world of sinners into a world of righteous people, a people who have become transformed by the much more abounding grace of the Saviour. Paul is on to a "big idea" here that we must handle carefully.

No, in fact, the race of human rebels on earth are not now a race of actually, personally righteous people: but God tells everybody in His vast unfallen universe that they are a race of redeemed, righteous people if they don't resist or reject what He has done and presently does for them!

Christ has done His work correctly; He tells the Father, "I have ... finish[ed] the work which You gave Me to do" (John 17:4). His justification of His people is real, the job is done; but man still has his freedom of will and he can nullify and defeat all that His Saviour has accomplished--so depraved and rebellious is fallen man, the man created "in the image of God" Himself.

Romans 5:16: "And again, the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man's sin; for the judicial action, following on the one offence, resulted in a verdict of condemnation, but the act of grace, following on so many misdeeds, resulted in a verdict of acquittal." Paul is obsessed with this idea of "much more" grace!

Romans 5:17: "If, by the wrongdoing of one man, death established its reign through that one man, much more shall those who in far greater measure receive grace and the gift of righteousness live and reign through the one Man, Jesus Christ."

Romans 5:18: "It follows, then [brilliant thinking!] that as the result of one misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act is acquittal and life for all."

Romans 5:19: "For as through the disobedience of one man, many were made [the Greek says, "constituted"] sinners, so through the obedience of one Man many will be made [constituted] righteous [even though they are not!]."

Romans 5:20: "... where sin was multiplied, grace immeasurably exceeded it,

Romans 5:21: "in order that as sin established its reign by way of death, so God's grace might establish its reign in righteousness, and result in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

The gospel that has astonished the unfallen universe and has yet to lighten the earth with its glory (see Rev. 18:1-4), shines clear and bright in Paul's Romans 5!

--Robert J. Wieland

Endnotes:
[1] Ellen G. White, Manuscript 7, 1894; Evangelism, p. 169.
[2] Ellet J. Waggoner, Waggoner on Romans, p. 101.
[2] Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 753.

Notes:
Bible texts are from the Revised English Bible, unless other noted.

Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at:
https://youtu.be/Dp-Jjy5df3s

"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm

RR

Raul Diaz

https://about.me/raul.diaz

Lesson 5: The Faith of Abraham

Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic

Salvation by Faith Alone: The Book of Romans
Lesson 5: The Faith of Abraham

 

When God called Abram out of Ur, what was his spiritual condition? We know that shortly after the Flood, Nimrod established the kingdom of Babel in rebellion against God (Gen. 10:8-10), and Ur was an area in that kingdom. We know that in this place the inhabitants worshiped the god of the crescent moon named Sin. Sin was thought to be the creator of all things, the father of all gods, including being the father of the sun god. We also know that Abram's father, Terah, worshiped idols and was so attached to them that when they left Ur, he took his idols with him.

"... Terah, [was] the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor: and they served other gods" (Josh. 24:2). Abram and his family didn't just have statues on their shelves to remind them of the gods they worshiped, as some have crosses or pictures of Christ on their walls, but "they served other gods." False gods were a very real part of their spiritual and daily experience. Abram's family were pagan through a superstitious blending of the deified things of nature, with a faded knowledge of the true Creator. They possessed a remnant knowledge of the pre-Flood experience of Cain and Seth's descendants, but had confounded that knowledge with pagan ideas about God.

Though the "father of the faithful" began his career in heathen darkness, Terah and Abram had access to a full knowledge of God through the witness of Shem, who lived for 502 years after the Flood (Gen. 11:10, 11). Shem, Noah's son, was still alive when Isaac, the son of promise, was born to Abraham. God has never been without a faithful witness who could call people out of darkness into the light of His redeeming love.

Though fading, it was the remnant knowledge of the one true God as kept alive by Shem, and the evidence of the Flood as judgment against sin, that held open the heart's door allowing the Holy Spirit to act upon Abram's heart. Living among a multitude of silent, powerless deities, there was One who with increasing clarity spoke to Abram through his conscience. "Faith in Christ is not the work of nature, but the work of God on human minds, wrought on the very soul by the Holy Spirit, who reveals Christ, as Christ revealed the Father." [1]

"Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee ... So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him" (Gen. 12:1, 4). "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went" (Heb. 11:8).

Unquestioning obedience, that's the characteristic of true faith. Faith "works" contrary to what human nature, or "common sense" tells us to do. Common sense would have been to stay put, right where Terah's family had always lived. Common sense would have questioned that "still small voice" that called Abram out of the fertile and prosperous land along the Euphrates River, saying go to a land where he would remain "a stranger and a pilgrim" the rest of his life (Heb. 11:8-10, 13). Abram had to be removed from his "comfort zone" so he could be prepared for what God wanted to do with him. He had to be brought to the spiritual condition of total dependence upon the word of God, or he would never have become the "father of the faithful."

It took a series of trials that tested Abraham's confidence in God's creative word before he was "fully persuaded" of the power inherent in God's word. Only then it could be truly said of Abraham, "Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness" (Rom. 4:18-22).

At the outset of his spiritual journey Abraham had no evidence that the thing God promised him (having a son and becoming heir of the world) would become an actuality. But God's gift of the measure of faith (Rom. 12:3) was cherished by Abraham and as he exercised it, it grew in strength. The remnant knowledge that Seth's God was the true Creator, as opposed to all other pretender gods like Sin, was key to Abraham's spiritual development.

"What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?" (Rom. 4:1). What was it that Abraham "found"? "For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith" (Rom. 4:13). Abraham "found" righteousness through believing God's word. "And he believed in the Lord; and He counted [reckoned] it to him for righteousness" (Gen. 15:6). Abraham could not "earn" this righteousness through the keeping of the law, nor through the rite of circumcision. "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 them that believe" (Rom. 4:11). The rite of circumcision did not make Abraham, nor any of his descendants, righteous. "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love" (Gal. 5:6).

Abraham's righteousness was not "of debt," as though through his own "good works" God owed salvation to him. Nothing we can do will place God under obligation to us. Ellet J. Waggoner, one of the 1888 "messengers," understood this concept: "If anyone could do something for the Lord for which the Lord would be under obligation to him, then all things would not be from Him. That is to say, the idea of justification by works is opposed to the fact that God is the Creator of all things. And conversely, the recognition of God as Creator is the acknowledgment that righteousness comes from Him alone." [2]

And thus, God's holy Sabbath rest is the sign and seal of righteousness in the final remnant people who recognize the Creator as the only source of power for overcoming sin and developing Christ-like characters (Rev. 14:6-12). Through the tested and proven faith of Jesus Christ--God's gift to us--our hearts are yielded, our wills submitted and our affections are firmly fixed upon the Saviour, and everything in this world loses its attractiveness. Righteousness by faith is the gift from God through Christ, the Author and Finisher of that faith.

Righteousness by faith is depending upon the word of God only to accomplish what it has promised: that it can create in fallen human beings that which does not exist without His power and presence in the life. "Faith is the expecting the word of God itself to do what the word says, and depending upon that word itself to do what the word says. ... Since the word of God is in itself creative, and so is able to produce and cause to appear what otherwise would never exist nor be seen; and since faith is the expecting the word of God only to do just that thing, and depending upon 'the word only' to do it, it is plain enough that faith is 'the evidence of things not seen.'" [3] "Thus it is the word of God that must work in you. You are not to work to do the word of God: the word is to work in you to cause you to do. ... The word of God being living and full of power, when it is allowed to work in the life, there will be powerful work wrought in that individual." [4]

Consider now God's promise that Abraham would be "heir of the world" (Rom. 4:13). What is Paul speaking of here? "I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession" (Gen. 17:8). In his witness before the Sanhedrin, Stephen spoke a well-known fact concerning Abraham and the possession of the land, that God "gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on" (Acts 7:5; NKJV). How do we reconcile this seeming contradiction?

"First let us note the fact that the inheritance promised is an everlasting inheritance. Abraham himself is to have it for an everlasting possession. But the only way in which Abraham and his seed may have everlasting possession of an inheritance is by having everlasting life. Therefore we see that in this promise to Abraham we have the assurance of everlasting life in which to enjoy the possession." [5]

"Do not forget that the covenant and the promise are the same thing, and that it conveys land, even the whole earth made new, to Abraham and his [spiritual] children. Remember also that since only righteousness will dwell in the new heavens and the new earth, the promise includes the making righteous of all who believe." [6]

"God has not said that if we will believe certain statements and dogmas, He will in return give us an everlasting inheritance. The inheritance is one of righteousness; and since faith means the reception of the life of Christ into the heart, together with God's righteousness, it is evident that there is no other way in which the inheritance can be received." [7]

"And this brings us to the conclusion of the matter, namely, that the promise to Abraham and to his seed that they should be heirs of the world, is the promise of Christ's coming. ... And so we find that we have as great an interest in the promise to Abraham as he himself had. That promise is still open for all to accept. It embraces nothing less than an eternal life of righteousness in the earth made new as it was in the beginning. The hope of the promise of God unto the fathers was the hope of the coming of the Lord to raise the dead, and thus to bestow the inheritance." [8]

--Ann Walper

Endnotes:
[1] Ellen G. White, In Heavenly Places, p. 51.
[2] Ellet J. Waggoner, Waggoner on Romans, p. 81.
[3] Alonzo T. Jones, Review and Herald, Jan. 3, 1899; Jones and Waggoner, Lessons on Faith, p. 19.
[4] Ibid., p. 108.
[5] Waggoner on Romans, p. 84.
[6] Ellet J. Waggoner, The Glad Tidings, a verse-by-verse study of Galatians, p. 72, CFI ed. (2016); Gal. 3:29.
[7] Waggoner on Romans, p. 88.
[8] Ibid., pp. 86, 87.

Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at: https://youtu.be/x_hffE_NaD0

"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm

RR

Raul Diaz

https://about.me/raul.diaz