December 8: Romans 4-7

December 8, Romans 4-7

Romans Continued… All of today’s summaries will be by Bakers Commentary… My Bible is mostly highlights and underlining on most of Romans, and to do the summary for these would be a very difficult task in the time that I have! Have a blessed day in Christ…

Romans 4 “Having set forth the truth that the state of righteousness in God’s sight cannot be achieved by means of human works but is God’s gift, the apostle now, in harmony with 4:21, elaborates on the fact that this representation is not a novelty but is thoroughly scriptural.

In this connection he fixes the attention of the hearer and/or reader on the manner in which Abraham obtained this great blessing: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). He comments, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a favor but as a debt. On the other hand, to the person who does not work but rests his faith on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.” God counted for righteousness that which Abraham appropriated by faith, namely, the righteousness of Another, that is, of Jesus Christ, which was imputed to Abraham. Cf. Rom. 4:6, 11, 25; 5:6–21; cf. Isa. 53:4–6, 8, 12.

By means of a quotation from Ps. 32 the apostle proves that what was true with respect to Abraham holds for all believers: “Blessed (are) those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”

Returning to Gen. 15:6, Paul asks, “Is this blessing then pronounced only upon the circumcised or also upon the uncircumcised?” He shows that it was long before Abraham was circumcised that his faith was reckoned for righteousness. As a result Abraham became “the father of all believers”; that is, of those uncircumcised as well as of those circumcised; in other words, of Gentile as well as of Jewish believers (verses 1–12).

In close connection with the immediately preceding, Paul now emphasizes the importance of God’s promise and its fulfillment. It was not through the law that Abraham received the promise. Human works or merit had nothing to do with it. It was faith in the promise that mattered. Cf. Gal. 3:9, 29. God promised Abraham that he would be “the father of many nations,” therefore “heir of the world” (Gen. 17:5). Abraham did not waver in unbelief but was strengthened in faith. He rested his faith on him “who imparts life to the dead, and calls things that are not as though they were.” In view of the fact that Abraham was almost a hundred years old and Sarah was barren, this faith of Abraham was indeed remarkable. The patriarch believed that whatever God promised he would also do. Moreover, the words “It was reckoned to him for righteousness” were meant not only for him but for all who rest their faith on God, the One who “raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”

The Savior “was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.” This probably means that our trespasses made it necessary for Jesus to be delivered over to death, and that he was raised to life in order to assure us that his vicarious sacrifice had been accepted. As a result believers are, in the very sight of God, without sin and therefore righteous (verses 13–25).

By means of corroborative evidence from the Old Testament Paul has made clear that the comforting doctrine of justification—hence salvation—by faith, on the basis of God’s sovereign grace, is indeed thoroughly scriptural.”

Romans 5 “This chapter consists of two main sections: A and B. In A we are shown that the basic result of justification by faith is peace with God. Other blessings are associated with it. In B the main emphasis is on the generous character of the salvation provided by God.

A. (verses 1–11) Paul has reached a new phase in the discussion of justification by faith. He begins to fix the attention of the hearers-readers on the favorable effects resulting from justification. First of all he mentions “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” As 5:10 makes clear, this peace is basically “reconciliation with God through the death of his Son.” Associated with this peace are such other blessings as access to God by faith and a joyful looking forward to the marvelous salvation God has in store for those who have placed their trust in him. Even present suffering for the sake of Christ and his kingdom cannot dim the luster of the glory that is to come and in principle is being experienced even now. In fact, such suffering is really a link in the chain of blessings: suffering, perseverance, proven character, firmly anchored hope. This hope is kept alive and strengthened by God’s love “poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (verses 1–5).

Christ’s timely death for the “ungodly” is a demonstration of God’s love. By way of rare exception someone might be willing to sacrifice his life for a worthy person, but God demonstrated his own love by means of Christ’s death for us while we were still sinners (verses 6–8).

Not only has our legal standing been changed from “guilty” to “righteous,” i.e., from condemnation to justification, but our personal relation to God has also changed. Through Christ’s death former enemies were changed into friends. It was God himself who brought about this reconciliation. Now if God has reconciled to himself enemies, he will certainly save friends. Believers need not become alarmed about any future divine wrath. With a view to all these blessings, present and future, even now “we exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (verses 9–11).

B. (verses 12–21) In a sentence beginning with verse 12, recaptured (as to essence) in verse 18a, and completed in verse 18b, the apostle states, “Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, since all sinned; that is, as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all men, so also one act of righteousness resulted for all men in justification issuing in life.”

“In Adam’s fall we sinned all.” Adam, by means of his transgression of an express divine command, involved all mankind in his sin and guilt. The entire human race is viewed as being already “in” Adam. Moreover, being involved in sin implies being involved in death. The reality of sin did not depend on the establishment of the Mosaic law. Even during the period Adam-Moses sin was taken into account, for God’s law had been written in man’s heart (cf. 2:14, 15). This explains why it is right to state that death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin by transgressing an express command, as did Adam (see Gen. 2:16, 17; 3:1–6). In this connection Paul calls Adam “a type of him who was to come,” Adam being considered the head of fallen humanity; Christ, the head of redeemed humanity (verses 12–14).

In the remainder of the chapter the apostle shows that as all men were included in Adam, so also “all men,” that is, all those who belong to Christ, whether they be Jews or Gentiles by race, are included in Christ. The parallel Adam-Christ is, however, mainly one of contrast, as now becomes very clear. Paul says, “For if, by reason of the trespass of the one the many died, much more did God’s grace, and the gift that comes by the grace of this one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.” Adam’s transgression brought condemnation. Christ’s voluntary sacrifice of himself for his people brought justification issuing in life. Moreover, grace is ever far more effective than sin. “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” Did grace merely offset sin and death, so that mankind returned to the state of innocence, that of Adam before the fall? On the contrary, grace changed death into a gain, substituted righteousness for sin, and everlasting life for death. All this “through Jesus Christ our Lord” (verses 15–21).”

Romans 6 “Justification, the basic blessing for every sinner who places his trust in Christ, implies union with the Savior, a union with him not only in his death but also in his resurrection. “For if we have become united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like this.” Now being partakers of Christ’s resurrection implies holiness, for it was the risen and exalted Christ who poured out upon the church his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of sanctification.

This means, of course, that those people who tried to use the doctrine of justification by faith as an excuse for leading a sinful life were dangerous heretics. Their slogan, “Let us go on sinning in order that grace may increase,” was an inexcusable and horrible distortion of the doctrine proclaimed by Paul. Therefore he exhorts the members of the Roman church as follows, “Do not allow sin to reign in your mortal bodies … but offer yourselves to God, as those who were brought from death to life, and offer your bodily parts to him, as weapons of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be lord over you, because you are no longer under law but under grace” (verses 1–14).

The sinister character of the antinomian heresy fills the soul of the apostle with such horror that for the moment he does not stop to give a further explanation of the statement, “You are no longer under sin but under grace.” He will, however, return to that subject a little later. See 7:1 f.; 8:1 f. For the present he continues to combat the soul-destroying heresy to which reference was made. He now points out that not only the sinful life should be avoided but so should even yielding to individual sins, for they have a tendency to make slaves out of those who fail to combat them. If allowed to gain the mastery over a person, they will lead him on to death. Paul is happy to be able to state, however, that those whom he addresses have abandoned their slavery to sin. They have exchanged death for life everlasting. He closes this chapter by saying, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord” (verses 15–23).”

Romans 7 “Just as a woman, by means of a death (that of her husband) is released from her marriage bond and allowed to marry another man, so also by a death (the believers’ death with Christ) God’s children are released from indebtedness to the law, the latter’s “bill” having been fully paid by Christ’s voluntary and vicarious sacrifice. Believers have, accordingly, obtained liberty. This liberty is a freedom from and a freedom for. It is a freedom from the obligation to keep the law in order to be saved, and is therefore also a freedom from the curse which the law pronounces upon the disobedient. But it is at the same time a freedom for or with a view to, a freedom in order to render service to God “in newness of the Spirit, not in oldness of the letter” (verses 1–6).

Release from the law, in the sense indicated, does not imply that the law is sinful. On the contrary, the law is good and useful, for it lays bare our sinfulness. It puts to death our sinful pride and vaunted self-sufficiency. “I would not have come to know sin, had it not been through the law. For I would not have known what it meant to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ ” Therefore, “In itself the law is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good.”

Paul has stated that the commandment slays us. But how can something that is good bring death? The apostle answers that it is not the commandment, operating by itself, that slays us; it is our transgression of the commandment that does this. Hence, the real cause of death is sin. It remains true, however, that the very whiteness (moral-spiritual purity) of God’s commandment causes the blackness of our sin to stand out all the more sharply.

By saying such things as “Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died … the commandment killed me …,” Paul gives us a glimpse into his own experience prior to, during, and shortly after his conversion (verses 7–13).

In verses 14–25, which section follows logically upon verses 7–13, Paul, the believer, reflecting on his own situation and that of others like him, discusses The Wretched Man’s Struggle and Victory. He does not find fault with God’s holy law when it exposes him, even Paul, and others like him, as being still polluted with sin. He clearly and openly confesses, “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold as a slave to sin.” He admits, therefore, that although absolute goodness can be ascribed to God’s law, it cannot be predicated of himself, Paul. He knows that as long as he is on this sinful earth, he is carnal, that is, unspiritual, worldly, far from perfect. Being a true child of God, the apostle genuinely deplores the fact that he had been sold as a slave to sin. He confesses, “Indeed, that which I am accomplishing I do not approve of. For not what I want (to do), that do I practice, but what I loathe, that I do … For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, it is the evil I do not want to do, this I practice.”

Is not this the very conflict which is also mentioned in Gal. 5:17, where the same apostle states, “The flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: for these are opposed to each other, so that those very things you may wish to be doing, those you are not doing”? And is not this realization of imperfection similar to that expressed in Phil. 3:12, 13, “Not that I have already gotten hold or have already been made perfect … I do not count myself yet to have laid hold”?

However, the very fact that in his inner being Paul does not really want to do what is contrary to God’s will but loathes this situation, fills him with courage, so that he is able to exclaim,

“For according to my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see in my (bodily) members a different law, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The fact, frankly admitted by him in a summarizing statement, namely, “So then, I myself with my mind serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin,” does not cancel the essence of the assurance of victory expressed in those memorable words, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (verses 14–25).”

To sum it all up: 

• Either we fight the flesh or we obey it... what are you battling for or against?