Romans Session Two

Romans Class—Session Two—Romans 3:20-5:21
If you are facing judgment and if God were to say, “why should I let you into heaven?”
In this section Paul will tell us what are the main
The first (maybe the whole) issue is dealing with the sin issue.
Isaiah 59 your sins have caused separation between you and God. A holy God cannot have fellowship with sin.
3:20 Once you are a lawbreaker, the law is not your friend. If you do the crime you got to do the time. That is justice—condemning the guilty.
We are in this situation of how do we get right with God when we stand before Him guilty. Most religions say you got to do the time. Even in “christian history” there are doctrines of penance. The Bible does not teach penance.
The main thing to understand, where the Jews misunderstood, is that once you break the law it will not help you. It stands to condemn you.
There is a qualifier to the kind of sin the Jews would say falls within the justification of the law. Those are “unwitting sins,” whereas deliberate sins have not atonement under the law. Romans teaches that all sin is punishable by death (Romans 6:23). Consequently, the solution has to come from God. That is the good news!
Romans 3:21...righteousness comes from God, not supposed by man but given over by God Himself.
What does he mean by “faith in Jesus Christ”? That is very important because that is how this righteousness is acquired.
The gospel of John emphasizes “faith in Jesus” really well. Faith in Jesus is about relationship. Jesus and God are One, and faith in Jesus is being one with Him who is One with God.
We are not talking about a doctrinal quiz when we're standing before God. Nor are we talking about a mystical thing, “I believe in Jesus” (intellectually/emotionally speaking), but we're talking about a relational mix.
We cannot get caught practicing “one verse theology” because it is such an insecure foundation to base our faith. A lot of people do not grab hold of a collection of Scripture but a very small portion and miss the faith God wants us to have.
3:24 Justified—Galatians 2:15-16
Redemption—literally means to buy back or purchase out of bondage. Like a house going into foreclosure and you get a right of redemption. You can go in and buy back your property. It is kind of like us because we've sinned and we have nothing to buy back.
Hebrews says without the shedding of blood there is not forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22)
Colossians 1:13 redemption
Galatians 3:13 why was the law there in the first place. The law is a custodian/guardian that looks after us before we reached an age where we could inherit the trust. Under the Old Testament there is a right to the redemption without the ability to inherit it.
Expiation—sacrifice of atonement. This brings to view the mercy seat—reminds of an old song about the mercy seat.
Atonement can be seen as at-one-ment.
Romans 5:6-11 reconciliation means restoring relationship. This shows up a lot in the marriage relationship. It is a very hard thing in the legal context when a couple is headed for divorce. Most end up in divorce not reconciled. Reconciliation is about restoring relationship with God. You are forgiven, not so you can simply go to heaven but relationship. You will not stand before God with proper doctrinal responses and getting the blessings but “Dad!” The joy of it all is that you are being reconciled now not later.
Why did Jesus have to die...why is it set-up this way?
God had to find a way to solve an inherent dilemma in His nature. Like in Isiah where God is depicted as Awesomely Holy. God is Holy and Just, therefore man in his sin is in trouble. God is also loving and wants reconciliation. God is always true to His nature. David depicts the dilemma in Psalm 51. David was in a tough situation with his sin. The penalty with not sacrifice but death. There was no hope in redemption at that point. God was in a dilemma. It can make it look like, even with God the rich and powerful get off. Instead God said, “I will be your sacrifice.” Why can't you be saved by being a good, devoted...(budest, Muslim, Jew, christian)? Because we all sin and redemption does not come through good works.
4:1 Abraham came before the law, so what happens with him? He didn't have the law to justify him.
4:6-8 David
4:9-12 Here is where a lot of Protestants get misunderstandings. Circumcision was a sign of the faith, which was the basis of righteousness. Baptism is not the sign. The Holy Spirit is the sign of our relationship.
God established a relationship with people before the law. Abraham, Enoch, Noah, Job, etc. We see many examples and can assume there were many more not recorded. The basis of the relationship was trust.
Abraham believed God had the ability to do what He promised. Do you believe God will do what He promised?
Galatians 5:6
Ephesians 2 saved by grace not works the Calvinist will use to argue against baptism, which is something the authors would not do. Distinguishing between works of faith and works of law is making the understanding of Romans 4 and James 2. A saving faith is about having a relationship with Jesus that has an expression of that faith through loving works. If nothing comes out, as James says, you really have no faith. Faith expresses itself through love!
5:1 In relationships you want peace. We will have conflicts but we really want peace.
We all die physically because of Adam's sin.
Jesus died on the cross so that everyone would be made righteous but you still have to respond in faith. This means it is not universal whether excepted or not.
The law was added so that sin may increase. We see how utterly sinful we are and how much we need God's grace. God's grace shows great enough though!
Practical Problems—
We still face legalism—there is an inherit lean toward legalism. “Just tell me what I got to do!”
Catholic—system that went from bad to worse
Protestants—a reaction to a corrupt system that didn't clear up all the dilemmas and created some of its own
Mormons—gone back to the point of blending so much of the OT in “another testament of Jesus Christ”
We have lazy, one verse theology today
Any of us can do that, total subjective, and we get a big mess
Easy Believism
Type it into the word search “pray Jesus into your heart” and you get a whole mess of stuff
Bonhoffer wrote in the 30s about cheap grace. He saw the country fall apart spiritually, where cheap grace runs amoke. “When Jesus bids a man 'come follow,' he bids him to come and die” (find quote). Jesus' death has already taken place, so guess whose death comes next.
You don't show up with your ticket and get in because it is a relationship. We become a son/daughter of God, becoming collectively the bride of Jesus.