What an eventful couple of days it has been...
Moving my site from one message board to another has been an inordinate amount of work, which is fine...we needed to do that badly. It's an ongoing process so I just ask Father that Your hand of blessing and protection would continue to be over it as we try to meet the needs that the membership has.
Yesterday, it was such a thrilling experience to help bring 10 little puppies into this world. From start to finish, my heart bonded with Kayra in a way I never had before...her going through the pains of puppy birth, bringing back memories of when I had birthed my own children. So Father, I just thank You for these puppies. I pay that You would personally find each and one, the home that You would have them go to, and that these puppies would have lives that bring honor and glory to You.
I've missed doing this Romans study though. As I've been swamped with these things the last couple of days, my mind has wandered frequently to Romans...wanting and needing to get back to it, it just means that much to me. I don't have a problem taking a day off here and there but when those days stretch into 2 or 3 or more, I really, really miss it. So I'm grateful to be here, once again...in Your presence, under Your watchful eye, reading Your Word.
May Your precious Holy Spirit open my spiritual eyes and my heart, so that I may learn all that You would have me learn. Camp Your angels of protection around me and my family and may all our lives bring glory to You, our Heavenly Father.
I really do love You, Lord. It is a very deep and abiding love that makes me tear up.
In Jesus Name I pray,
1. What advantage then hath the Jew [over the Gentile]? or what has been the profit of circumcision?
2. Much every way: foremost of all, because they were entrusted with the oracles of God.
3. For what if some were faithless to the trust? shall we at all think that their faithlessness annulled God's faithfulness?
4. Be it not thought of! Yea, let God be true, though every man a liar; as it is written,
That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words,
And mightest prevail when Thou comest into judgment [by man].
And mightest prevail when Thou comest into judgment [by man].
5. But if our unrighteousness commendeth the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who visiteth with wrath?
6. Be it not thought of! for then how shall God judge the world?
7. But if the truth of God through my lie abounded unto His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?
8. And why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), Let us do evil, that good may come? - whose condemnation is just!
The rvbv says that if we were to paraphrase this passage it would read along the lines of this:
"What preeminence then (if both Jewhood and circumcision are spiritual and inward only), hath the Jew? Or what has the Divine ordinance of circumcision amounted to? Much in every respect! But first and foremost that to that nation the oracles of God were entrusted. For what if some were faithless (to that trust)? Shall their faithlessness render inoperative the faithfulness of God (in carrying out those oracles)? Far be the thought! Yea, let God be found true, and every man, Gentile and Jew (found) false; as it is written (and that by king David, himself, confessing blood-guiltiness):
'That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words,
And mightest prevail when Thou are judged
(by sinful man as to the injustice of Thy ways.'
And mightest prevail when Thou are judged
(by sinful man as to the injustice of Thy ways.'
"But (it is further objected) if the unrighteousness of us Jews has proved and publicly commended the righteousness of God both as to His holy nature and as to His truth - for He plainly prophesied Israel would sin) can we not say that God would be unrighteous to visit us Jews with wrath? (I am speaking thus, - though with horror - because it is the way men talk). Now away with the thought! For how then (if it were unrighteous for God to visit a Jew with wrath) could God judge the WORLD? (as He indeed will). But (the Jewish objector continues) if the truth of God through my falsity has abounded unto His glory, why am I still judged as a sinner? and why not (since our Jewish evil-doings have in the past been made by God to bring about good) - why not keep doing evil that good may come? They are even slanderously reporting our teaching this awful doctrine! - because we preach righteousness by grace and faith and not by good works. The condemnation of those who bring such arguments is self-evident, and on the very face of it, is just!"
The rvbv talks about how to the Gentile and Jew, this insistence of God upon moral reality before Him of all would appear to be simple in and of itself. It was not however, so simple to those whom were stripped of all their special and Divinely bestowed privileges. Paul is emphatic in this 3rd Chapter of Romans, that there is NO distinction before God between the Jew and Gentile as it pertains to being a sinner. Paul meets any objections that may arise by appealing and presenting these verses to the Jews mind...addressing the special position of privilege given by God to Israel as God's seperate people and (as the rvbv states), "also the righteous character of God Himself as conceived of by the Jew in his privileged position. These objections are specious and daring - next to blasphemous: but they must be answered.
The importance of this great passage cannot be overestimated, for if the Jew as that end of the dispensation, or any "religious" person at this end, be allowed to plead special privilege or light as exempting him from judgment, he will spiritually (of course not actually) escape the general sentence of verse 19, where "all the world" is brought under the judgment of God. If a man escapes in spirit from God's pronouncement of "guilty," he will never truly rely upon the shed blood of the Guilt-Bearer, Christ!"
The rvbv says that there are 3 Jewish questions raised in this passage (Romand 3:1-8). I'll just share straight out of the book because Newell has gone into great detail describing these questions and explaining them, and I wouldn't want to misrepresent what he's sharing.
"Question I
Verses 1 to 4: What advantage or preeminence has the Jew and circumcision?
Answer: That nation was entrusted with the oracles of God - inestimable, eternal advantage! despite their unfaithfulness. Every writer of the Bible is, we believe from this, an Israelite. Jewish faithlessness could not annul God's faithfulness in carrying out those oracles (whether of promise, prohecy, or judgment). God must be found true, though every man be false (to whatever God entrusts to him). Paul instances David's most humble confession and ascription of righteousness to God, after David's own great sin had shown David himself faithless to the royal covenant Jehovah had committed to him.
Alford well says: "Because they have broken faith on their part, shall God break faith also on His? Rather let us believe all men on earth to have broken their word and troth, than God His. Whatever becomes of men and their truth, His truth must stand fast."
The "faithlessness" here of the Jew is not his failure to believe God's oracles. (That subject Paul takes up in Chapters 9 to 11.) What is here before us, is the Jew's attitude toward the great primary privilege and responsibility of that nation as the depositary of the Divine oracles. In verse 5, Paul makes the Jews call their conduct "our unrighteousness." It consisted in:
1. National disobedience to God's oracles form Sinai onward.
2. Such neglect of these oracles, that at times (as in Josiah's day), a single copy of the Law was a rarity!
3. Pride, however, over their position as the possessors of these oracles (Tholuck states: "Oracles (logia) here are primarily, Divine declarations; hence, particularly, promises and prophecies." Alford states: "Not only the law of Moses, but all the revelation of God hitherto made of Himself directly, all of which had been entrusted to Jews only."), even to the despising of nations that had them not, instead of ministering them to others (as Psalm 67 shows was Israel's real business).
4. Appalling ignorance of the spiritual meaning of the Divine oracles, and of the "voices of their prophets," so they even killed the Righteous One! (Acts 13:27).
Watchman Nee points out that in verse 4, "God must first convince us of His righteousness before we can repent and believe in Him. Thus, He is declared righteous by us before we are declared righteous by Him.
Question II
Verses 5 and 6: If God makes use of human sin to set forth His glory (as He will) would it not be unrighteous to punish that sin with wrath? Here Paul enters into the Jewish consciousness: "If our unrighteous Jewish history has commended the righteousness of God, what shall we say? God went right on fulfilling what His oracles said, despite the unfaithfulness of us to whom they had been committed, and, in fact, by means of our sinful Jewish history God's prophecies concerning our disobedience were fulfilled before the whole world, from Moses on."
Read here Deuteronomy 31:14 to 32:47. For it is about Israel that Deuteronomy 32:35 to 47 is written. The Jew, knowing well his past disobedient history, yet holds fast to his national place of outward favor, resisting Paul's word of Chapter Two, "He is not a Jew that is one outwardly"; and daring to regard God as "unrighteous" who would "visit with wrath" individuals of His favord nation - for they had only carried out God's predictions!
Paul in even bringing up such a question as God's acting unrighteously in visiting disobedient Israelites with wrath, instantly puts in the reverent parenthesis: "I speak after the manner of men"; as, "putting himself in the place of the generality of men, and using an argument such as they would use."
Answer: "Far be such a thought! for then (if God should be unrigheous in visiting a Jew with wrath) how shall God judge the world!" The Judge of all the earth will do right, and He will judge the whole world (Acts 17:341) which involves the infliction of wrath upon any and all impenitent, as all Scripture shows.
Note that Paul assumes, and so do even these cavillers, that there will be a day of judgment: "God who visiteth with wrath." What the apostle is attacking is the false hopes of men to evade that judgment. Christ has been judged and smitten in our stead. But alas, how a man hates to come to the cross as one "to whom that stroke was due" (Isa. 53:8). But if you manage to escape conviction of sin, and thus miss personal faith in the Crucified One, you will go to hell forever.
Question III
Verses 7 and 8: "If God's truth (as to His warnings and promises) was enhanced through my falsity - if He got glory through my (Jewish) sin, why does He find fault with me as a sinner?" Here the very words of the resisting Jew are, as it were, quoted.
Answer: While such cavilling Paul will nto deign to answer (for it answers itself!) Paul does return into the gainsaying Jews' teeth the constant slander against salvation by grace, - that it led to license: "The condemnation of such trifling is just! For it is evident both to the hearer and to the asker of such a question that doing evil that good may come, does not change the character of the evil, nor take away its guilt from him who commits it."
"Slander" against the gospel of grace is still going on, and will go on until the Lord comes in righteousness. Moule well says, "The mighty paradox of justification (without works) lent itself easily to the distortions, as well as to the contradictions, of sinners. 'Let us do evil that good may come' no doubt represented the report which prejudice and bigotry would regularly carry away and spread after every discourse and every argument about free forgiveness. It is so still: 'If this is true, we may live as we like'; 'If this is true, then the vilest sinner makes the best saint.'" Godet says: "God cannot become guilty of any wrong toward any being whatever. Now this is what He seems to do to the sinner, when He at once condemns and makes use of him."
The Jews, deluded by pride, and falsely basing God's favor to their nation upon their own deserts, absolved themselves from judgment. Judgment they relegated to the "goyim," the "ethne," the Gentiles. Paul himself shows the Jewish consciousness in his rebuke to Peter in Galations 2: "We being Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles." And the Pharisees said even of the common, non-religious sinners of the Jewish nation: "This multitude that knoweth not the Law, are accursed!" (John 7:49).
But if we, professing Christians, consign this whole passage to the Jew, we fall directly into the same terrible trap. Whole multitudes today in Christendom, sheltered in their imagination by the fact that they have "joined" some church, resent the very doctrines that Paul here insists on. Thousands of so-called "church-members" not only have never been brought under real conviction of sin and guilt and personal danger, but rise in anger like the Jews of Paul's day when one preaches their danger direcctly to them!
Now if God paid no attention whatever to the claim of the Jew to be exempt from judgment because he was a Jew, neither will He pay any attention to the claim of the "Baptist" or "Presbyterian," "Episcopalian" or "Methodist," - as such. For all men are alike guilty, common sinners! What avails before a holy God the special religious names sinners may call themselves? This book of Romans will do you and me no good if we apply it to Jews or Mormons only!
Watchman Nee points out in verse 7 that, "In Greek the same word as for truth (reality). The word here and in 15:8 denotes genuineness, sincerity, honesty, faithfulness, and trustworthiness as one of God's virtues."
Heavenly Father,
Thank You so much for crossing my path with this Romans study reference by Newell. So many times when I sit here reading and writing from his book, I find myself thinking "wow...I never understood it like that, or I never saw it like that..."
I love You so much and I am so earnest in my heart, desiring to learn all that You can teach me about this particular book of the Bible. As I sit here and think about it, I can't see how any of us (or at least most of us) would ever had had this relationship that we DO have, with You, without Your word teaching us, convicting us, drawing us. So thank You for Your Word...it really is precious to me.
As I, and we, go about our day today, I just ask that You will pour out Your Spirit over all of our lives...that we might be in constant knowing of Your presence in our lives. Let our hearts bond with Yours, as there is no greater feeling in the world.
In Jesus Name I pray,
