Okay, so this is the first lesson in this series entitled "Grace in the Book of Romans", lesson number one, introductory lesson, just to dive right into the book. The book of Romans has some of the most challenging ideas in the entire Bible. So it'll require an effort to stay with the class, an effort to give the class.
Some have called this epistle Paul's Ph. D. thesis on Christianity.
If someone said I'd like to have just one Bible book to read that gives me the most information about Christianity, about the gospel in general that touches all the important points, I think I'd give him the book of Romans to read. If it was only one book. It fits this description because in it Paul examines the core ideas of the Christian religion.
Also he deals with a lot of its most challenging questions. So today's lesson is going to be on the introduction to the approach that we're going to be taking for our study. We'll be looking at a particular passage in the first chapter of this letter that summarizes the entire epistle and the scope of our class.
Alright. So a lot of scholars point to Romans 1:16 as the key verse in Romans because it distills down into just one sentence the whole point of not only the book of Romans but the entire Bible itself. That's in Romans 1:16 where Paul writes, "For I'm not ashamed of" "the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes," "to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
" When you actually read the Bible, and then read the book of Romans in particular, you find out that yes, the gospel is God's power to save man, but the power that the gospel has is that through it the grace of God is revealed. There's the power. People begin to understand the depths of God's grace towards man and that has power in people's lives.
That's what the book of Romans does. You see, anytime you preach the gospel to someone, to a crowd, write a book about the gospel, and the point that you end up making is something other than the grace of God revealed to men through Jesus Christ, then you've missed the point. You haven't preached the gospel if the point you make in preaching the gospel is that baptism is by immersion.
If that's your point or if the point that you make is that well, there's only one church or that the Bible is an inspired book, if that's the point you make when you are preaching the gospel, you have explained certain true principles contained in the Bible, but you haven't successfully preached the gospel. See, this is why we sometimes work so hard at convincing other people to believe in Jesus Christ and we fail. We teach them a lot of biblical doctrines but we neglect to expose them to the one thing that has the power to save, the power to change, the power to convince, the power to convict, and that's the gospel itself.
Is it true that baptism is by immersion? Well, yeah, sure. We can show that in the Bible.
Is it true that there's only one Church according to the scripture? Well, yeah, of course. Well, we can show that, but those true things, that's not the gospel.
It's not what we're preaching. There's no "good news" in the fact that there's just one church. Well, great there's just one Church but somebody will say, "So what?
" What's that to me? What's in it for me? Where's the good news there?
So the gospel contains power because it is how God reveals His grace towards men. Now there is some good news. There's something to be happy about.
There's something to get excited about. No where is the grace of God more powerfully revealed and described than in the story of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. Of course that story's in the gospel, that historical story is in the gospels.
I might add no where is the grace of God more eloquently and powerfully explained than in the book of Romans. That's my point. So nothing builds one's faith and hope like a deeper understanding of God's grace.
Therefore, why are we studying this subject? Why is it called "Grace in the Book of Romans? " Because that's the key to the power.
That's why. So for the purpose of our study this is the general outline that we're going to follow. First of all, we're going to look at "The Renouncing of God's Grace", Romans 1:1 to Romans 3:20.
The problem here is the problem of universal sin, universal sinfulness that Paul describes, summarizes in 3:23. Paul begins by explaining the concept of grace by detailing man's fall from grace and the state of universal sinfulness. The idea is that you can't understand light if you don't understand darkness.
So he begins by explaining what darkness is, Romans chapter 1 all the way to chapter 3:20. "The Response of Grace", Romans 3:20 all the way to chapter 7:25. The cross of Jesus Christ is God's response to man's rejection of His grace.
God's gracious response to man's sin is the cross of Christ. So we're gonna look at that, how Paul explains and develops that idea. Number three, "The Request of Grace", Romans 8.
Grace stimulates a response that the law, the law of God could not. You know the Ten Commandments, the law, the principle of law? Paul explains the law does not change men.
The law does not in any way and has no ability to make you a better person. The law is there simply to demonstrate that you are a sinner, that you are a failure. You and I, everyone fails in keeping God's law perfectly.
That's the purpose of the law. Paul talks about that. Then he explains that grace on the other hand, it has the power to change people.
It stimulates people. So the offer of grace draws a new response from us which he calls spirit-filled living. So the request of grace is spirit-filled living.
Number four, section four, "The Refusal of Grace", chapters 9 to 11. So in chapters 9 to 11 Paul's going to give an aside here. Okay?
He's going to explain well, if all this is true about grace why did the Jews stumble? So Paul is going to use the Jews as an example of what happens to people, to religious people who refuse God's grace. So in chapters 1 and 2 he talks about those who fall from grace without religion.
In chapters 9 to 11 he's going to describe those people who fall from grace but with all the trappings of religion. Then fifth section, "The Result of Grace", chapters 12 all the way to the end. The result of grace is the church, the church that belongs to Jesus Christ, Romans 12:1 and 2.
In this section Paul describes in detail what grace looks like in the lives of those who experience it. What are we supposed to be like if we're people who are empowered by the grace of God? So in the end the church is the collective expression of those who are experiencing God's grace, vertically, man and God, horizontally, man and man.
Paul will describe what that looks like in a real time situation. Okay. So that's the outline of our course.
Alright? We're gonna be covering those sections in the next couple of weeks. Before starting the book itself I want to review some basic definitions and some misconceptions that we've had about the subject of grace itself.
First of all, just a basic definition. New Testament word for grace in the Greek, "charis" meaning a favor, and "eleo" meaning mercy. Now the idea of grace in the Old Testament was presented as something that would eventually come.
So in the Old Testament when they talked about God's grace it was always something that was going to happen in the future. The main hope that the Jews had of grace would be that God would have mercy on them, that God would have mercy and save them from every enemy or every sin. This was grace.
It was out there in the future. One day this grace is going to happen. It's going to impact our lives and we have to have faith and we have to keep moving towards that.
Okay? In the New Testament we see that God's grace is not a thing, it's not an object but rather it's a disposition or an attitude that God has toward man in regards to his failures and sins. That's what grace is in the New Testament.
Titus 3:4-7 says, "But" "when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved" "us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but" "according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy" "Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior," "so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the" "hope of eternal life. " So according to Paul, grace begins with God's attitude, His attitude of love and mercy toward men, and is perceived through His concrete actions throughout history. I perceive God's grace to me by the actions that He's taken on my behalf and these actions are the outworking of His grace.
Christianity is the only religion whose theology is based on this quality of God. The quality that exalts this expression of His divinity, that sees this as the motivating factor in His dealings with men. No other religion focuses completely on this idea in God's character.
So we're gonna delve more into these ideas as we as study the book itself. For now suffice to say, that grace is an attitude or a quality of God's character that manifests itself in love and mercy towards sinful men. So that's the New Testament idea of grace.
So let's move on to the misconceptions. Okay? There have been some rather serious misconceptions about grace throughout the years.
Many of these resulted in the development of entire religious systems, some of which are still with us today. All because men, women, teachers, have misunderstood the idea of grace. So let's review a couple of these.
Again I'm not. . .
this is not a harangue against this group or that group, this is just history here. Alright? .
. . history of theology, people's thinking.
So we start with Roman Catholicism, for example. In Roman Catholicism grace is a spiritual commodity distributed through, what are called, the sacraments, through the intermediary work of the clergy. So you have God.
. . In Catholicism, you have God, you have the clergy, you have the laity.
Sacraments are like commodities. Excuse me. Grace is a commodity that goes from God and is distributed through the clergy to the laity through the actions of what are called "sacraments".
So in Catholicism the religious ceremony itself. . .
There are seven sacraments right? (Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, Marriage) (Holy Orders, Penance, Extreme Unction) Those are the seven sacraments in Catholicism. Seven rituals, seven activities, through which grace is imparted to the recipients and is delivered, if you wish, the delivery system of this grace is through the priesthood, through the clergy.
So we know baptism, then confirmation when a child reaches the age of reason. "Communion", communion is taking the Lord's Supper. "Marriage", that's a sacrament.
"Holy Orders", when someone goes in the priesthood. "Penance", that's confession, people go into confession. "Extreme Unction", the last rites.
They put some oil and prayer before a person dies or immediately after they die. The authority of the priest or the bishop administering these sacraments imbues the action itself with grace. That's the thinking.
Some are even higher. You've got actual grace then you've got sanctifying grace. Or even quality, you've got.
. . Think that grace is like a vitamin.
You've got the vitamin, actual grace. You've got super vitamins, sanctifying grace. So in this type of thinking grace is an ingredient contained in these rites and the more you observe these rites the more you get, the more valid your experience.
For example, a marriage in the Catholic Church, that's a sacrament. That's why if you're Catholic, you can get married at City Hall. Well, you're married legally but you're not really married before God.
You didn't get get the grace pill that comes with a Catholic wedding. That's the thinking. It's like a spiritual supplement.
Now, this is incorrect because of its view of grace as a commodity rather than an attitude in a relationship between God and man. This type of thinking leads to legalism in its worst forms. Okay, another one.
Pelagianism, fourth century heresy. The idea of Pelagianism is that it was up to man to do it all. The thinking was, with the knowledge of the law and determination.
. . I mean God's law not the civil law.
But with the knowledge of God's law and determination a person could do right. The idea was that knowledge was the key to improvement and greater knowledge and greater self will. These things work hand in hand to make a greater improvement.
In other words, you could become perfect if you had enough knowledge and enough willpower. Most self-help books work on this principle. If you have the right knowledge, let's get the Guru in for the weekend.
We gotta have a seminar, 900 bucks a person. You know what I'm saying? If you get the advance tapes and the advance books you're just gonna get more knowledge.
Then you just have to work, work, work, work, work. That's Pelagianism, in a million varieties. You can do it!
Yes you can! All that stuff. That's Pelagianism.
The Bible teaches that a man is helpless to change himself, that a person is helpless to improve and especially helpless to save himself before God's grace appeared. Paul says in Romans 5:6, he says, "While we were still helpless, at the right time" "Christ died for the ungodly. " Does that sound like we can save ourselves to you?
Because if we could. . .
If one person in the whole world could save themselves then what do we need Jesus for? We don't need Him. Pelagianism, just do it.
Calvinism: Calvinism, most people know about Calvinism. Two famous doctrines that come from Calvinism. They don't actually come from Calvinism, predestination and election are actually biblical doctrines but the take on these two in Calvinism, developed and brought people into another direction.
So in Calvinism grace, in this context, in the context of predestination. . .
Predestination according to Calvinism or classical Calvinism, predestination says that God knows in advance who's going to be saved, who's going to be lost. He knows. Election teaches that God actually chooses some for salvation and some to be lost and once He chooses you can't get unlost.
This idea once saved always saved, that comes from Calvinism. If God chooses you to be saved, doesn't matter what you do you're gonna be saved. If God didn't choose you doesn't matter what you do you're never going to be saved.
I mean, that's breaking it down to its simplest forms. So grace in this context means that God arbitrarily chooses some to be saved, condemns others. In this context grace means that an individual is saved without any response from himself or herself and he can do nothing good or bad to reverse the choice.
So this idea of grace is false because it eliminates man's responsibility to exercise his free moral agency and choose. This free moral agency, this is based in Scripture. Someone says, no, no, we can't choose.
It's impossible. We're too depraved. That's another Calvinistic doctrine, the depravity of man.
Man is so morally corrupt you can't even make a right choice. He can't even choose to be saved even if it's in front of him. It's just too evil.
Yet when you read Joshua 24:15, what does Joshua say to the people of Israel? He says, "Choose this day who you will serve, as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. " You go through the Bible you see people choosing all the time, right or wrong, to serve or not to serve, to go or to stay.
They're always choosing. The failure here is to differentiate between conditional and free. Something can be free but have certain conditions.
For example, air, breathable air, that's free, but we need to breathe it in for it to be useful. There's a condition. Right?
Another example, a will. A will gives the estate to the children usually for free. They don't have to buy it.
They can't buy it but certain conditions have to be made. Perhaps the youngest child has to be twenty-one years old before they can come into their inheritance. That's a condition.
It's still free. Didn't have to buy it but there's a condition. Well, in the same way, grace and its benefits are free.
You can't buy eternal life. You can't buy sinlessness. You can't buy righteousness.
You can't buy those things. God gives them to us for free, but there are conditions however. So conditions don't make something less free.
See what I'm saying? So Calvinism pushed the idea of grace without any conditions, but throughout the Bible God has always placed conditions on man for everything even salvation. Alright, let's look at one more legalism or what I call thermometer religion.
The most common misconception of grace is the thermometer image of grace. Here's thermometer image of grace. This is how it works.
We give a part. We do our best to kind of. .
. Salvation's at the top here. Okay?
When you reach a hundred degrees that's salvation. You're good. You're with God.
You've got eternal life. You got it all. Okay, that's the top up here.
The thinking is well, what we provide, we do our best to do the best you can, you get up there. Maybe you get up to 20% or 30% or 50% and God through His grace supplies the rest. The famous quote that goes with this, "God helps those who" "help themselves.
" Okay? How many times have I heard that? "God helps those who help" "themselves.
" Well, that might be true in certain situations but not when it comes to salvation, not when it comes to grace. Here's the proper image. If you want to look at thermometer, the proper way to use this illustration is that God provides a hundred percent man provides zero.
When I say "man provides", in other words, man does not pay for his mistakes. Man does not give something to God in order to pay for the nasty, stupid, bad, evil, things that he's done to make up for it. The cross of Jesus Christ pays a hundred percent of the moral debt that we have before God, a hundred percent of it and it's a take-it-or-leave-it situation.
There's no room for human pride in salvation. The Bible concept says that man does not even possess what is necessary to save himself or other people, not that he might not want to it's just that he doesn't have what it takes to accomplish this. So what does it take according to the Bible to achieve this salvation, according to the thermometer theory?
Well, first of all if you want to save mankind you have to have a perfect life, a perfect life of obedience. 1st Peter, I think I have a scripture here. Here it is.
1st Peter chapter 2, Peter says, "Who could. . .
", speaking of Jesus, he says, "who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth;" "and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He" "uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;" "and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we" "might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were" "healed. " Does he say, so by His wounds and some of your wounds we'll be healed? No.
No, it's by His wounds that we are healed. So in order to pay that moral debt, what is necessary? Peter says, well to begin with a perfect sinless life is necessary to avoid condemnation and thus be saved.
You want to go to heaven? You want to be with God? Fine.
Be perfect. Don't make any mistakes. Don't break any laws.
Why is it this way? Well, because God is perfect and in order to be with Him you have to be perfect because you were made originally perfect. So a perfect life is necessary to offer us payment for the moral debt of sin of others and thus satisfy God's justice.
So here's my point. Jesus has the currency necessary to pay our debt of sin. What is that currency?
A perfect life. Now, there's something else necessary, a perfect life of obedience and a divine spirit. Let's read Hebrew 9.
Stay with me. He says, "For Christ did not enter a holy place" "made with hands," not the Temple on earth in Jerusalem, "a mere copy of the" "true one. .
. " Uh oh, there's a true temple? Yeah, it's it's up there.
". . .
but into heaven itself, now" "to appear in the presence of God for us;" Then in chapter 10 he says, "By" "this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of" "Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest,. .
. " talking about the Old Testament priests, "Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time" "after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having" "offered one sacrifice. .
. " That perfect life. ".
. . one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat" "down at the right hand of God," Why can He sit at the right hand of God?
Well, He's perfect, but He's also the Son of God. So here's a point we need to note. A divine spirit was necessary in order to enter into the presence of divinity itself which had been shut because of man's sinfulness.
It is not enough to live a perfect life you have to be able to come before God and offer that perfect life. So Jesus became a man in order to offer a perfect human life but He retained His divine nature in order to be able to enter into the presence of divinity to offer that sacrifice. Now, we're not doing the book of Hebrews but that's what the book of Hebrews is about.
It works like this. Let's say somehow I managed to live a perfect life. Let's just say no sins, no mistakes, a perfect life.
I've got a perfect life but my wife, she's a regular human being. She hasn't lived the perfect life. I love my wife so I want to save her.
All the women are saying, "yeah, sure. " But I want to save her. Right?
So I've lived a perfect life and I say to God, "Okay, I'm willing to offer my perfect life in order to cancel the debts of her imperfect life, one-for-one. I won't, unfortunately, be able to save Paul or Julia or Emily or William, none of the grandkids. I just have one life.
I've got a perfect life but I've just got one. So I offer it for one, one for one. Why?
Because it's only a human life that I'm offering, but Jesus. . .
This answers the question why did divinity have to come to earth? Why Jesus? Because Jesus not only has a perfect human life, because He's also the Son of God.
He has a divine spirit. So His offering not only can pay for the sins of one individual, by the virtue of the fact that His Spirit is divine it has the value to pay the sins of all people. One last example, idea.
Imagine you have a pound of granite or a hundred pounds of granite and you have a hundred pounds of gold. You put these on the scale. They're even.
Right? 100 pounds of granite, hundred pounds of gold, but which one is more innately valuable? Well, the gold of course.
Even though the weight is the same the gold is much more valuable than the granite. Well, Jesus has a human life and I have a human life. Yeah, what's the difference?
Well, my human life is human but His human life also has a divine spirit, much, much more valuable than mine. More valuable in the sense that it can have the power to pay the emotional, excuse me, not emotional, but the moral debt of all those who have lived from Adam till now. That's the idea of grace.
Okay. So one definition, just one large definition. God's original creation of the universe with man at the head of it; his subsequent decision to save man through the method of atonement accomplished by Jesus; His establishment of the church in order to reveal this plan to all of mankind.
That's what grace is. So it's not easy. It's one word but it has such valuable rich meaning and our study of Romans will delve into more deeply the meaning of the idea of grace as Paul explains it in the book.
Okay. That's our first lesson. I encourage you to read ahead.
It's always good to read the passages. This is not going to be a line-by-line study verse by verse. This is a thematic study.
So I'm just going from section to section where he's talking about the subject of grace. We could go back through Romans and look at what what Paul says about Jesus Christ and do a thematic study about Jesus through Romans or other topics, but we've selected the topic of grace. We're going to follow that theme through the 16 chapters of Romans.
So read ahead. Chapters 1, 2,and 3 and you'll be familiar. Alright.
