WEDNESDAY Service at the Saint's Den, ROMANS, February 19th

The Mighty and Merciful Message of Romans 1-8
By Pastor John Piper

Paul writes the letter to the Roman church to mobilize their support for his mission to Spain. In Romans 15:24 he writes, "I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you." He has never been to Rome and has never met most of these Christians. So he lays out his gospel for them to see in these 16 chapters.

Oh that all our missionaries would know the book of Romans and preach the book of Romans. And Oh that those of us who send would know the book of Romans and live the book of Romans so that we would send missionaries the way Paul wanted to be sent and supported from Rome to Spain. The mighty and merciful message of this book will make rich Americans strip down to a more wartime lifestyle and pour their resources into the cause of the gospel. And the mighty and merciful message of this book, in the mouths of suffering missionaries, will break the powers of darkness and plant the Church of Christ in the hardest places.

The Multi-Cultural, Global Aspect of This Letter

It’s not surprising then as you start to read this letter, there is a multi-cultural, global point to it. In Romans 1:5 Paul tells us the goal of his apostleship: "We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations." That’s why he preaches. That’s why he is going to Spain. That’s why he writes this letter: to bring about faith in Jesus Christ and the obedience that comes from it – "among all nations!" Romans is about the nations – the people groups who don’t yet believe on Christ. Who are not justified and not yet sanctified and therefore will not be glorified if they are not reached with the gospel.

Then in verse 14 he tells us his apostolic obligation again: "I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish." And lest we think he has left out the Jews, he says in verse 16, "I am 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." Jews, Greeks, Barbarians, wise, foolish! In other words, this mighty and merciful message of the book of Romans breaks through national distinctions and cultural distinctions and educational distinctions.

This is utterly crucial to see in our pluralistic time – a time very much like the first century when the church of Christ spread so rapidly. Christianity is not a tribal religion, but calls for faith and allegiance from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. Jesus is not one among many gods. He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and there is no other name under heaven by which all men must be saved. The mighty, merciful message of Romans is not just one way of salvation among many. It is the way of salvation, because Jesus Christ is the one and only Son of God and Savior.

This claim has always been disputed. And it is especially disputed today in America, even among professing Christians, and, of course, among Muslims and Jews. In Friday’s Star Tribune there was another article rejecting the necessity of faith in Christ. A joint commission of Catholic bishops and American rabbis released a document called "Reflection on Covenant and Mission." The main thrust, the author said, is this: "Efforts to convert Jews are ‘no longer theologically acceptable’ . . . because the Jewish people already ‘abide in covenant with God" (Friday, Sept. 20, 2002, p. A23). In other words, there is one way of salvation for Jews who reject Christ, and there is another way of salvation for Christians who receive Christ.

This is a false and heartbreaking statement from Christian bishops in view of what Jesus said, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him" (John 3:36). Therefore, concerning the Gentiles who accept him and the Jews who reject him, Jesus said, "Many [the Gentiles] will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom [the Jewish people who reject him] will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 8:11-12).

So it is utterly crucial that we see the universal claims of the mighty and merciful message of Romans. We are not dealing here with a human opinion, or a human philosophy, or a self-improvement program, or a tribal religion, or something parochial and limited. We are dealing here with the true news that the one and only God has acted uniquely in history to save people by sending his one and only Son to die for sinners and rise again. To reject this news is to perish.

The Thesis of the Letter: Romans 1:16-17

So Paul states his point in Romans 1:16-17 and then explains and applies it in the rest of the letter. "I am 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. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’" First, Paul says that his message – his gospel – is mighty and merciful to save: it is the power of God unto salvation. And this salvation is through faith. The power of the gospel to save penetrates to our souls with faith in Jesus Christ.

Then in verse 17 he explains why the gospel has this power: "For in it the righteousness of God is revealed." The gospel has the power to save those who trust Christ because it reveals the righteousness of God. What does that mean?

Romans 1:18 – 3:20: Why All of Us Need to Be Saved

Before he explains what it means, Paul spends Romans 1:18 – 3:19 to show why all of us need to be saved. You see his summary in Romans 3:9, "We have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin." And verse 19: "Every mouth [is] stopped, and the whole world [is] held accountable to God." So we are all sinners. We are all under God’s wrath (1:18). We have no righteousness that could commend us to him, and 3:20 makes plain that we can never save or justify ourselves: "By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight." We are sinners. We are under God’s just and holy wrath. And we cannot save or justify ourselves by works.

Romans 3:21-31: Revelation of the Righteousness of God by Faith in Jesus and Its Implications

Now Paul returns to his main point of Romans 1:16-17 and explains what it means that the gospel is the power of God to save believers because it reveals the righteousness of God by faith. He says in verse 21-22, "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested [here he’s picking up the revealing of God’s righteousness in verse 17] apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it – 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe."

So what is the revealing of the righteousness of God that gives the gospel its power and saves believers? It’s the manifesting of "God’s righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus." It’s God’s righteousness revealed as a gift to us through faith. It’s what we call justification. So Paul says in verse 24 that sinners who trust Christ "are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." The revelation of God’s righteousness that makes the gospel the power of God unto salvation is the demonstration and the gift of God’s righteousness to sinners who trust in Christ.

Romans 3:25 explains how God can justify sinners without being unjust: "God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins." In other words, God ordained for his Son to die in our place so that the Father’s wrath and curse would be on him and not on those who believe. In this way he shows his hatred for sin and his just dealing with it. So now, as verse 26 says, he can be "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

So the death of Christ is the foundation of our justification. If we believe in Jesus, God counts us righteous for Jesus’ sake. We are seen and treated as just. That is justification. And in verse 28 he makes clear that this right standing with God is not by works but by faith, "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law."

And right here don’t miss the global, missionary, multi-cultural implication of this. Paul himself draws it out in verses 29-30, "Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles [the nations] also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith." Justification by faith in Christ is the mighty and merciful global message we have for all the nations and all the people groups and all the people we will ever meet. There is one Savior, one cross, one resurrection and one way to be right with the one God: having his righteousness imputed to us by faith in Christ, not by works.

Romans 4: Abraham’s Justification by Faith apart from Works

In chapter 4 Paul makes the case for justification by faith apart from works by using Abraham as an example: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness" (verse 3). One of the most precious verses in the book is built off Abraham’s example (verse 5): "And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." Not work but faith justifies. And not the godly but the ungodly are justified. This is good news indeed – this is the mighty and merciful message of Romans.

Romans 5: Hope and Security in the Face of Suffering and Death

In chapter 5 Paul sums up with verse 1, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Then he opens the reality of suffering and death for the justified – and anticipates the huge emphasis on suffering in chapter 8. Verse 3 tells us why we can rejoice in tribulation – it leads to patience and approvedness and hope.

Then against the backdrop of this tribulation he argues exactly the same way he does in chapter 8 – from the greater to the lesser – if God can do a hard thing, he can do an easy thing. Recall in Romans 8:32 he says, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all [the hard thing], how shall he not with him freely give us all things [the easy thing]?" That’s exactly the way Paul argues here in Romans 5:9, "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood [that’s the hard thing], much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God [that’s the easy thing]." Same kind of argument in verse 10: "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son [that’s the hard thing], much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life [that’s the easy thing]."

The point is our hope and security in the face of suffering and death, just like it is in Romans 8. Normal Christianity is tribulation. "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). Don’t ever forget that the mighty and merciful message of Romans is put forth in the context of expected suffering.

Death is a massive reality in all cultures. If you have a gospel you must have some explanation of death and some hope in the face of death. That is what Paul takes up in Romans 5:12-21, and he does it by comparing Adam, whose disobedience brought sin and death, with Christ, whose obedience brought righteousness and life. Verse 19 states the contrast most clearly: "For as by the one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s [Christ’s] obedience the many will be made righteous." Adam’s sin and condemnation were imputed to us because we are united to him by birth; so Christ’s obedience and exoneration were imputed to us because we are united to him by faith.

Then Paul sums up the triumph of grace through Christ in verse 21: ". . . So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Romans 6: Union with Christ Is Death to Sin and Deliverance from Slavery

Which led to a problem that had to be solved: If we are really justified by faith alone and where sin abounds grace abounds all the more, then why not sin that grace may abound? And Paul answers this in chapter 6 with the teaching that faith unites us to Christ in a real way so that we actually experience with him a death to sin and a deliverance from its slavery (6:6, 17-18). All justified people are being sanctified.

Romans 7: Dead to the Law that We May Belong to Another

Then in chapter 7 Paul argues that it is not an orientation on law-keeping that sanctifies us – or makes us like Jesus. No, "you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. . . We are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit" (7:4, 6).

The Christian life is lived in the free gift and earnest pursuit of a relation to Jesus Christ "That you might belong to another!" (7:4). He is the might and the mercy and the model and the mandate of the Christian life.

Romans 8: Nothing Can Separate Us from the Love of Christ

This brought us then in these recent weeks to Romans 8 – the great 8. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ (verse 35)? Do you see the connection between that and Romans 7:4? Dead to the law so that we might belong to another – to him who was raised from the dead, Jesus Christ. That is the key to living and the key to dying. Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ. Answer: Nothing. Who shall separate us from the love of God in Christ? Answer: Nothing.

"So whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s, for to this end Christ died and rose again, that he might be Lord both of the living and the dead" (Romans 14:8-9). Live under his lordship, die under his lordship. And always sing to the invincible love of God in Christ.

SUNDAY Service at the Saint's Den:BOOK OF ROMANS, February 9th

THE GREATEST THING in the WORLD: An Overview of Romans 1-7

By Pastor John Piper

  

Today we come to the end of our exposition of Romans 1-7. My aim today is to venture the impossible: a summary of the first seven chapters of Romans and of 104 sermons that began April, 1998. My prayer and my longing is that the structure of truth – the vision of reality – in this book would become the structure of your mind and your vision of reality. That you would think about God and sin and Christ and life the way the apostle Paul does – the way God does. And that you would thus become a humble lion-hearted alien and exile in America, ready to lay down your life for the glory of Christ and the salvation of sinners.

A Summary of Romans 1-7

Romans teaches that the most fundamental problem in the universe is that God's human creatures – all of us – have sinned and fallen short of his glory and are now condemned under the omnipotent wrath of God. There is the problem of our condition called sin. And there is the problem of its consequence called wrath. Another way to say it is that there is real guilt on every person because of sin, and there is real condemnation over every person because the Judge and Maker of the universe is just and holy.

Paul's conclusion after two chapters of as acting the prosecuting attorney is Romans 3:9, "What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, 'THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE.'" Romans 3:22-23, "There is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And there's a good definition of what our sin is and why it has mainly to do with God, not man.

When he describes the sins of his own people in Romans 2:24, the climax of the indictment is this: "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." What makes sin sin is not first that it hurts people, but that it blasphemes God. This is the ultimate evil and the ultimate outrage in the universe.

The glory of God is not honored.

The holiness of God is not reverenced.

The greatness of God is not admired.

The power of God is not praised.

The truth of God is not sought.

The wisdom of God is not esteemed.

The beauty of God is not treasured.

The goodness of God is not savored.

The faithfulness of God is not trusted.

The promises of God are not relied upon.

The commandments of God are not obeyed.

The justice of God is not respected.

The wrath of God is not feared.

The grace of God is not cherished.

The presence of God is not prized.

The person of God is not loved.

The infinite, all-glorious Creator of the universe, by whom and for whom all things exist (Rom. 11:36) – who holds every person's life in being at every moment (Acts 17:25) – is disregarded, disbelieved, disobeyed, and dishonored by everybody in the world. That is the ultimate outrage of the universe.

Why is it that people can become emotionally and morally indignant over poverty and exploitation and prejudice and the injustice of man against man and yet feel little or no remorse or indignation that God is so belittled? It's because of sin. That is what sin is. Sin is esteeming and valuing and honoring and enjoying man and his creations above God. So even our man-centered anger at the hurt of sin is part of sin. God is marginal in human life. That is our sin, our condition.

And the consequence of this condition is the wrath of God. Romans 1:18, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness . . . . (21) For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks." The failure to make the goodness and glory of God the center of our lives brings the wrath of God upon us.

Romans 2:5, "Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." In Romans 2:8, "[Those who] do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [will receive] wrath and fury." When we hear words like this – that we are all "under sin" and that sinners will receive the "wrath and fury" of God – we need be still and let that sink in. These are terrible words. When the omnipotent God has wrath and fury, no greater negative force can be conceived. We speak of the fury of a hurricane that flattens buildings or the fury of a tornado that snaps off trees like toothpicks. But these forces are as nothing compared to the fury of the wrath of God.

In Revelation 14:10-11 John gropes for language to describe the length and depth of hell. He says that sinners "will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night." There is nothing more fearful in reality or in imagination than the prospect of everlasting, never-ending, omnipotent, unimpeachably just and righteous divine wrath and fury. And that is the consequence of our sin.

Unless we get this clear in our heads and powerful in our emotions, the love of God will be reduced to sentimentalism or to a mere assistance for our self-help improvement and recovery plans. It will not be to us the infinitely precious, tremblingly embraced treasure that it really is.

The Turning Point: The Law of God Cannot Justify or Sanctify

Now comes to major turning point in the book. When Paul, the prosecuting attorney, has done his job, he ends in Romans 3:19 with the words that "every mouth [is stopped] and all the world [has become] accountable to God." Then he adds, in essence, Don't even begin to think that you can take God's commandments – God's law – and make them a means of getting right with God. "By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). And not only that, Don't even begin to think that you can take God's commandments and make them the means of becoming a new person. You can't be acquitted by the law, and you can't be transformed by the law. The Law of God cannot justify you and the law cannot sanctify you.

On the contrary, the message of Romans 3-7 is that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ into the world to live and die and rise again to be the ground of our justification and the power of our sanctification. If anyone anywhere in the world is going to get right with God or bear fruit for God, it will be through Jesus Christ alone. And he alone will get the glory. He is the great ground of our justification, and the great power of our sanctification.

Let's take these two great works of God (justification and sanctification) one at a time and see how Christ is God's remedy for our condemnation and how Christ is God's remedy for our contamination. How we escape the wrath of God into his favor, and how we escape the power of sin into lives of holiness and love.

Justification: God's Remedy for Our Condemnation

Before there can be any talk of changing the way we live – fixing our minds, fixing our families, fixing our churches, fixing our society – before any of that, and as the indispensable foundation for all of that, we must first escape from the wrath of God and be counted by him as righteous. Before there can be any God-honoring transformation there has to be the removal of God's condemnation. Which means justification must precede and provide the foundation for sanctification.

So Paul deals with it first. The central text is Romans 3:24-25. Guilty, condemned sinners are "justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith." Every phrase is precious to guilty sinners tottering on the brink of hell.

"Justified" is precious because it means God declares us to be just and righteous in his sight even before we escape from the power of sin.

"As a gift" is precious because it means we can't earn this. It is free. We don't deserve it. We don't get fixed before we have it. It is the basis for getting fixed.

"By His grace" is precious because it means that behind the wrath of God there is another mighty impulse in the heart of God toward us, grace, moving God, in complete freedom, to save us from his own anger.

"Through the redemption" is precious because it means our sins are forgiven and we are set free – redeemed – from condemnation.

"Which is in Christ Jesus" is precious because it means that Jesus himself and not us and not the law is the foundation of our justification. He is a much more solid rock to stand on than my law-keeping ever could be.

"Whom God displayed publicly" is precious because this great transaction of redemption was not done in a corner, or in some mythological story, but in history under a Roman governor before many witnesses.

"As a propitiation" is precious because it means that the wrath of God that we deserved was removed. Christ absorbed it, and took it away. He became the curse for us and took away the judgment of God. God was propitiated.

"In His blood" is precious because it means that Christ died for me. He poured out his life-blood in my place and did what I could never do to save me. Only the death of the Son of God could save a sinner like me.

"Through faith" is precious because it shows how you and I become beneficiaries of all this grace. We don't work for it, we receive it as a gift by faith. Paul underlines it in Romans 5:17 with the words, "Those who receive . . . the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ." By faith alone we receive the pardon and the imputed righteousness of Jesus.

So justification is God's act of counting us to be righteous, even while we are yet sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, on the basis of Christ's work alone, for the glory of God alone. This is the greatest thing in the world – to know God without wrath and full of grace because of Christ.

That is God's remedy for our condemnation and how we escape the wrath of God into his favor. We call it justification.

Now, how is Christ God's remedy for our contamination? How do we escape the power of sin into lives of holiness and love?

Sanctification: God's Remedy for Our Contamination

Justification is not a process of transformation. It is a declaration that before God we have a right standing, acquitted and righteous. It happens in the twinkling of an eye when we first believe in Christ. Sanctification is a process of transformation. It goes on through life and is based on the fixed, firm, unshakable ground of justification. That's the key difference.

And Christ is the key to both, not law-keeping. And faith in Christ is the means for both. We've seen it with justification. Now let's just remind ourselves what we have seen about sanctification. Paul says in Romans 6:19, "Yield your members to righteousness for sanctification" (rsv). In other words, give yourselves to this process of change. But how? How do justified sinners change into fruit-bearing followers of Christ? Romans 7:4 has proved to be a key verse for us: "Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God."

We who are justified want to bear fruit for God – we want to bear the fruit of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23). We want to become humble lion-hearted aliens and exiles in America, ready to lay down our lives for the glory of Christ and the salvation of sinners.

How does it happen? Not by preoccupation with the law but by dying to the law and belonging to another – Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. You embrace Jesus. You hold fast to Jesus. You trust Jesus. You treasure Jesus. You fellowship with Jesus. You love Jesus. Jesus becomes the passion of your life. That's what Romans 7:4 implies: Die to law-keeping and give yourselves to your all-satisfying marriage union with Jesus Christ.

So that's where we are now as we come to the Great Eight. No condemnation, because of Christ. And deep transformation because of Christ. One is called justification. One is called sanctification. We take our stand daily by faith on the once-for-all, unshakable rock of our Justification in Christ. And then we give ourselves daily by faith to the sanctifying work of Jesus in our lives. Oh, come and trust him. Unbeliever, come to him and put your faith in him, and receive him as your righteousness, your pardon, your treasure. Believer, come to him, again and again and again and take him as your treasure, the rock of your righteousness before God, and the power of your love toward men.