Lesson 16a

So J.D. left me with question 10 from lesson 15, right? Did he do 9 also? Did he finish? What does Rage for a Justification mean? Maybe he didn't finish. The cross, there was an intended purpose in the cross, what was it? What was the intended purpose? His satisfaction. About what? What was the issue? It was sins, right? So was the intended purpose accomplished? Christ do a good job? Because he did a good job, he was raised.

You see that? If he had done a job like you and I would have done, there would have been no resurrection. So the resurrection for our justification is a verification of the satisfaction of the efficacy of his work. So we're not justified, can't be justified, unless he is raised. You see the connection there? You see that? If he died for our sins but didn't accomplish it and he was never resurrected, do you get to be justified? No, you don't. Because God has to resolve the issue of the offense of sin to his satisfaction before he can be gracious.

Matthew Henry says, in Christ's death he paid our debt. In his resurrection, He took out our acquittal, but scripture goes much farther in this matter of justification than the satisfaction of all claims of God's justice against us. We are set in a new place of acceptance, which is what we're going to talk about this morning. The risen Christ that has nothing to do with our old place. We've talked in the past about when We'll back up. When the angels sinned, what happened to them? What did God do? The Bible says they lost their first estate.

Doesn't it? So it's interesting, when God creates a creature, he not only creates the creature, but he also creates an environment for them to live in that suits who they are. Well, if you're not suitable for where you are anymore, guess what? You have to move. Same thing with Adam. Adam was created and he was put in an environment that suited who he was. In a perfect earth, in the garden of Eden, perfect for him. When he sins, what happens?

He's got to vacate, because it doesn't suit him anymore. So, that works in reverse. When Christ rose from the dead, the earth wasn't suitable. as it is constituted now for him, only heaven is. Earth is not suitable for us, only heaven is now. We have a new estate, a new location that fits who we are. Do you see that? It's really important, I think, to understand that. I've discovered in just looking at scripture in terms of results of man's activities that God did do that.

He did create an environment for each one of his creatures And like angels and men, when they sinned, they had to leave the environment he created for them. And so now we're stuck, humanity, this world is the environment for sinfulness. So if you are included in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and you are resurrected, you don't fit here anymore. This isn't suitable for us, no matter how hard we try.

Now, chapter 5 is interesting. The first half of chapter 5, the first 11 verses, we're still dealing with the issue of God taking care of the sins of the world, S-I-N-S. When we get to 5.11, it will change, and we won't talk about that now, but when we get there, the whole next step is introduced right then and it ceases to be sins and now becomes a singular sin.

What does that mean? We'll cover that. But the first eleven verses it points out the glorious results of justification by faith. Can you name some? Yes. Peace with God is one. A new standing. We have a brand new standing and the standing is where? In grace. In grace, that's right. And it's unlimited divine favor now. We stand in this unlimited divine favor. Give me another one. Hope of the glory of God. What's that mean? We have his glory. But why is it a hope? He said one day our glory will be perfected. That's right, it will be perfected and it will not only be to us, but it will radiate out from us. I've had this thought, I think I've shared this before.

We're going to rule and reign in the millennial kingdom with the Lord Jesus, right? And there's going to be all these other human beings on the earth. And Mike will be walking down the road and people who are not from this dispensation will look and say, hey, there goes one of those. one of those sons of God, how can they tell? How are they going to know?

That's right, the glory of God will be radiating out of each one of us as we rule and reign with Him. They'll know that we are one of His sons. Because His glory will be manifested and as His glory is manifested, it will be manifested through each one of us.

Now some of you, you look in the mirror and that's a long shot, isn't it? What else is there? God's faithfulness. It's his faithfulness? We have peace with God. What does that mean? It's through our Lord Jesus Christ. How would you describe peace in a real short sentence? Essence of fear. Okay, what else? How about this? The war is over. Is the war over? Sure is. Peace with God means that God has nothing against us anymore.

What's it involve? It involves that God fully judged sin, took care of it all. And he did it upon Christ who was our substitute. You know we talk about in most bible based churches in terms of salvation they talk about the fact that God fully judged sin but they don't really believe it.

It's like Newell says in a man under grace in Romans 6, he says that to be disappointed in yourself is to have believed in yourself in the first place. What's interesting is that you aren't fully judging that your sins were taken care of, so you're still sort of disappointed. About what? If God's not disappointed, why should you be? So we don't trust him, is really what it comes down to.

So that God was wholly satisfied with Christ's sacrifice and that he's never going to change his mind for all eternity, that's what his attitude is going to be. Do you think that, this is kind of an oxymoron, a million years into eternity is an oxymoron, that you'll look back and say, why am I glad God saved me from that sin?

Do you think that will happen? We won't even have a knowledge of that anymore. You won't even think about that, will you? No. No, why not? Why wouldn't you? Well, the sin nature is gone. Yeah, the sin nature is gone, but what replaced it? The new man. No, more than that. Christ. Christ himself. We somehow don't appreciate the fact that Christ will be so attractive to us that you won't ever have to look at yourself anymore. How great is that? The older you get, the more you'll like that. Well, we got it now. What's that? We have that now. We do have it now.

But to realize that God is not going to take up the sin issue again. He's not going to do it again. It's all done. Yet lots and lots of denominations, they want to keep you in the sin circle all the time. that God is therefore at rest about us forever. If you understand that, you'll stop trying so hard to be pleasing to him, because you already are. So even if you don't have a real great understanding of God's truth and his grace, and you're weak about it, when you come to the realization that God is at rest forever about you, is a really cool thing.

Because he looks at Christ's blood and not at our sins. All claims against us were met when Christ made peace by the blood of his cross. Therefore, we have peace with God. Have any of you ever struggled with this issue before God and said, man, I must have made him angry today, or peace isn't working out so good?

Faith is beyond that. No, it looks out to the future of what happened in the past, that God is already there. That's back to the future. I think faith looks not out at the future, but looks out at the present. What's happening right now? What's true right now of me? And just to believe and rest by faith in the fact that God is at peace with me is a huge thing. But hopefully from 321 as we are beginning to put the layers of grace on, that they are making an effect on how you view things now in terms of, in this case, our relationship with God. a relationship with him where there's absolutely no war at all, we're at peace because of everything that Christ did.

Q. When it says that God disciplines us, those that he loves, how does that fit in?

A. Everybody hear that question? The Word of God says that God disciplines us, and how does that fit in? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be. May it never be. Don't you find it interesting that that question introduces the issue of position and condition? What are we talking about so far in Romans 5.1? Position or condition? It's total position, right? The fact that you have peace with God is a positional truth. You don't need to be disciplined when it comes to your position. How about your condition? What's your condition? It's your everyday walking around existence where you may not approach or live up to the standard of your position.

So what does God do? Discipline is a good word. A better word is child-training. He child-trains us, so what? For what reason? That we might be partakers of his holiness on a conditional level. You see that? He does that. walk us through that, right, at least in trials and what trials will produce. That's right. And then glorious hope. That's right. Endurance, character, hope.

And that's what he walks us through in this first part of Romans 5. He's going to walk us right through that, step by step, because he's got this perfect goal in mind, which, I mean, it's interesting, this whole an issue of position and condition, you don't ever see it any place else. The position is in concretes already done, completed, and as God looks at all of us, we are adult sons. But then we have this conditional thing where he is using all of his grace and all of his energy to conform us to the position he already gave us. Everything else in life We are working in a condition to achieve a better level of stature or authority or conformity to a system that we have decided. But not in Christianity. Christianity starts from the top and works down.

Isn't that cool? Isn't that the giving of the Holy Spirit? Sure is, and that's what his job is. His job is to do what? Whip you in shape? Now his job is to reveal to us exactly what God has proclaimed about who we are in Christ and what he's done and our union with him. The idea is to get our practical everyday walking around condition to begin to line up with this position that he's already given us.

It's like, Matt, if you started out a general. I think about the kids in England. that are Windsors, right? These little ones. What are they learning right now? They're learning how to be royal, because they already are royal. They're born that way. We're learning what it is to be sons of God.

Why? Because we already are. See that? We already are. So we've got to learn what we are. And that's where, as you say, the discipline comes in. Question two. Do these verses assume we have already been justified? Yes. What do you think? Yes. Yeah, it does.

It assumes that we already have this new position that's completely changed. It assumes that we've been justified. So what Romans 5 is written to believers only. It's our mail. only sent to us. It wasn't sent to anybody else. 2000 years ago. Yeah, how cool is that?

So we've been declared righteous or justified. It's what they call an eros participo, which means it's already done. What's the difference? What's the difference between being declared righteous and having been declared righteous. So let me try to differentiate these. Being declared righteous looks at a state or a standing we already are in. That's being declared righteous. Having been declared righteous looks back to the fact that has happened.

It's kind of confusing, but I got that out of Newell. It almost seems like what he's saying is it's not a process. It was an instantaneous thing that happened. That's exactly what he's saying. The moment you believe, it's not something that's percolated into you. It's instantaneous. That's exactly right. So there's no process of justification. Yeah, that's exactly right. We're in Christ.

But you know what's interesting? From a conditional standpoint, one of the best phrases that I've seen that describes this condition that's going on in our lives is that we are being expanded to contain. Do you understand what that means? The Spirit of God is expanding us to contain more and more of who we are in Christ. Do you see that? That's a cool thing, when you think about all of this process that's going on, this discipline, this child training, this study, everything that's going on, I'm being expanded to contain more of Christ.

That's really neat, you know. You expanded what Matt had said, looking at the Greek part of this, yeah, it's aorist and the other part is it's passive. It's done to us. So it's nothing of ours. It's, you know, we receive it or we have it acted upon us. And this verse has both, because the next one, we have peace with God. That is the present active. Right. And so continuous and we are active in that. Whereas the justification is past tense. It was done instantaneously at our new birth. And then it's done to us. Nothing of our doing.

That's really good. But the active part of we have peace, that's us acting all the time. We have peace because of... And that's the because of. When I ask the question, are you already justified? The answer is, yeah, I am. Because of what God has done.

There's a conclusion there. I have the peace because Question three, name eight things we have by God's grace in the first five verses. We've already talked about one. What's the first one? You said it. We have peace. What's the next one? If you read the verses, the words are all there. We have introduction, that's two. What's the third one? In which we stand. We have standing.

What's the fourth one? God forbid you'd have to look at your Bibles. What's the fourth one? We stand in what? Okay, that's the next one. What's the next one? Number five, we exalt and we're joyful. We exalt. We have God because of God's grace. What's number six? Look at the verses. It's right there. Perseverance? No, before that. The spirit? No. Tribulation? No. How about knowledge? We know something. It's something we have. We have an understanding. We have information. We can rejoice in something. Because we have the knowledge. We know.

Number seven is the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. And the last one is who sheds the love? The Holy Spirit. So we have peace, we have an introduction, we have a standing or a position, we have hope, we are joyful, we exalt, we have knowledge, We're receivers of God's love and we have the Holy Spirit.

All of that in five verses. Pretty cool, right? Oh, and by the way, it's all free. You don't have to pay for any of it. So let's look at them and let's go through them. What does it mean, quote, having obtained access into this divine grace wherein we are standing? And does your Bible say also? After the word also. So what that tells us is that in addition to the peace we also have something else. What is this something else? Access to divine favor. So what does access mean? Your invitation to come in. Invitation to come in. I'm going to use you as an example.

If I'm an E3 on your command, can I walk in your office anytime without talking to anybody? It would be difficult. Yeah, it would be hard, wouldn't it? If you decided you wanted to go see Donald Trump, how many hoops would you have to jump through to get there? Assuming you got there. So how about with the God of the universe? You have to jump through hoops to go in and see him?

No, you have access. Anytime, anywhere, any day, in any time of need. Unlimited, unfettered access to him because you're a justified one. Into this incredible standing that we have. So what is the standing? To me it means that God is able to look at us just as he looks at Christ. So we have a perfect position in his eyes, do we not?

Yeah. Look at it more from a family standpoint. Sons. Yeah, we're sons. We're equal. So if I'm sitting in my office and my son wants to come in, Does he have to go through my secretary to see me? Hopefully not. He can just walk in, right? That's the point that he's trying to make from a spiritual standpoint.

We have such a standing in Christ that there is nothing that has to be ritualized or accomplished before we can look him right in the eye and talk to him. It's like you've been sitting in his lap all along and you never got out. And who is he? He is the God of the Universe. This isn't some intermediary or go-between. This is the God of the Universe.

And you are a son. You are an adult, fully organic offspring of the God of the Universe, which gives you incredible access Nobody else has that kind of access. If you were a godly Jew, and I mean a godly Jew, would you have that kind of access? You don't. I mean, if you were a high priest, you've got to go into the Holy of Holies once a year, but what about your standing? I'll make a point here. Why wouldn't a Jew in 100 B.C. be able to say what this verse says, I have a standing before God and I have access anytime I want.

How about Abraham? Abraham was accounted righteous because of his faith. Does he have unfettered standing and access before God? Is Abraham a son? No, he's not. Is Abraham positioned in Christ? No, he's not. He has righteousness, has life, but he's not a son. That's a huge difference. His sins at that point were covered. What about your sins? You can't find them. But Abraham had an earthly kingdom. Take your pick. Do you want unlimited access or do you want an earthly kingdom?

I'm just curious, we're looking at this and you remind us that we have peace from God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. Mine doesn't actually have the divine. Mine's pointing more that we've entered into the reigning principle of grace. mind in there. So I mean it's not to me it's not as much focused on or doesn't have the one word divine. Did I say divine. What's in it on your question. King James. The word divine favor. It's not in the Greek.

So I mean here I guess my point is that is it more of our of our being positioned in Christ or being positioned in this grace, this operating which in 21, we're in the operating system or the reigning principle of grace. That's why, I mean, it's not, to me this is more that we, by faith, into this grace. We're now into this system of grace that we now operate. It's not, I mean, which, Because we're in Christ and all that he's done, we're now in this unmerited, unlimited blessings.

Yeah, so continue on with that thought for a minute. If we adopt Chester McCulloch's definition of grace, unlimited, unmerited blessings from God, because of the totally adequate work of Christ. How do I say this? It's one thing to be focused on the grace, It's another thing to be focused on what the grace affords me. What does the grace afford me? Well, that's the latter part, which is, you know, in which we stand. Where's our standing? That's right. Or, you know, in the Colossians 3, we're, you know, hid with Christ and God. That's exactly right.

And that's the point that I'm trying to make is that this grace, based on what Christ did, opens up the door to access in which there is to be a growing, intimate development of love between the Father and me and the Lord Jesus and me. Without that, we've got a religion. We've got regulations. We've got steps that I've got to go through to be more and more pleasing. But now, because I'm in this grace and in this standing, there's nothing between the Father and me or the Lord Jesus and me And what is God really all about? He's a lover. And lovers have to have objects to love and to reciprocate from. So think about what God has done.

He has taken all of the impediments out of the way and placed us in this river of grace so that we can be loved by Him and we can love Him back. You can't love somebody you don't know. Do you see that? I can love what I think about him, but if I don't know him, I don't really love him. Do you see that? Is that alright? You okay with that? You know? I mean, don't misunderstand me.

Grace is the most incredible... Well, put it this way. Of all the environments I could be in, Grace is number one. That's where I want to be. You know? It's like I view grace, living in grace, as being on pad 39A at Cape Kennedy when they light off one of those rockets and you're underneath it.

And all that grace comes showering down upon you. It's so intense. And I went down there and we saw the shuttle. It was just the power coming out of the bottom of that thing. I thought, oh, that's like God's grace. And I'm right there. being burned alive. No, that's not good. Skeptic. But I guess the point is, all of that fits together.

The grace, you know, it's our introduction into grace, which is, like I said, the end of this chapter, is where we're talking about the written principle. But it also includes the standing. That's how we get put into this system and how wonderful it is.

It's because of our standing, our placement into Christ, in God, Well, if you jump forward to chapter 6, verse 614, what's the one thing, the one thing that will allow us not to be under the dominion of sin? It's grace. The holy reason for grace was to get us out from under the dominion of sin. Law can't do that. That's why we'll be smoking and burning. So the thing about being under grace is that it is the thing that eliminates the dominion of sin. Law can't do that. Law makes it worse.

A footnote from Newell, he says, through whom also we have access or ads have had when we first became Christians and now while we are such. Darby adds, we are not called on to believe that we do believe. It's pretty subtle. Coming out of Catholicism, that's what they sell. We're called on to believe that we do believe. We have faith for faith's sake. That's not the point. but to believe that Jesus is the Son of God by whom we have access and are brought into perfect present favor. Every cloud that could hide God's love removed and we can rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. That's pretty cool. These are all facts. They are facts. Yeah, you think Romans 5 is a fantasy? No, it's a fact. Absolute fact.

So, we've only gotten through a couple of verses. Think about this. When it comes from a conditional standpoint, for spiritual growth, have we gone past the ability to grab hold of the facts from a conditional standpoint? In other words, maybe I'd ask it more simple.

Can I walk around every day and I know that the facts that I've discovered so far in Romans chapter 5, or from 321 to 5, is this how I function? Is this who I am? Your condition grows even. Yeah. Is this how I think of myself? Is this how I think of God?

I don't ask that question to intimidate anybody, I just say that from experience I find that there are legions of believers that aren't even this far. They don't realize access, favor, grace and that it's a permanent standing. They don't. And I don't know, did anybody not show them chapter 5 of Romans?

I have people call me all the time and say, oh, I've got this sin in my life, and they go on and on and on. And as I sit and listen, I think, I've got to come up with something other than just tell them, no, you're wrong. What I tell them is, you know what? My Bible says that that sin that you're talking about Christ didn't cover.

Right? Oh, well, maybe he did. Maybe he did. He either did or he didn't. Take your pick. And if he did, what do you get? See? Because sometimes we think that it's like, I remember your dad one time was talking about how two of his counseling clients had very similar problems. And he thought, gee, if I get them together, maybe it'll work. You know what the outcome was? Both of them thought that their problems were worse than the other one. Isn't that interesting? We always think that my problems are worse. What's the song? You don't know what troubles I've seen? Oh, really?

I'm living in a castle. The point being is that exposure to this grace is something that all of us as believers, we ought to be proclaiming that all the time to other believers. Not to the lost, to other believers. Because so many believers don't even have a grasp on this much grace. And this is just the start. Just the beginning. We're not very far down the road yet. I think this is kind of the progressive revelation of these things.

I think you're now more in standing. How do I get there? That's what Romans 6 tells you. And that's where I think, if I just stopped here, it would be awfully hard to understand how I can have this standing. Because I haven't seen the co-crucifixion and our separation. So I think it's kind of building up to the crescendo, I think, of Romans 6, where, how do I have this standing? I mean, if you stopped it right now, how would you understand this?

Well, that's the point. You can go through Romans 5 up to 12, and you can You can accept the grace, but then if you get curious about how did God pull this off, then Romans 6, 5, 12 and 6 begin to explain, expand your understanding of how God did it and why he did it the way he did it.

So the crescendo I think is an 8. I've thought for a long time that the Christian life as lived doesn't really start until 8. Everything up until that point is sort of giving you the how to's and what God has done. But how the life lives is laid out in 8.

But you can't have the faith unless you've got the results. You have to have the facts. And that's the point. So let's say you get one of these facts. Let's say you're talking to Mike over here and he starts telling you about Romans 5, 1 and 2. And that's all news to you. What do you do with those facts? You share them. If this is the first time you heard them, what do you do with them? You just believe them. You just believe them.

That's all God wants us to do, is believe Him. The grace is so inexhaustible that these facts will be coming at us for all eternity. Isn't that cool? Because Christ is limitless. There are facts about him and about God that will never be exhausted. Ever.

That's why I say this is just the start right here. And the start is overwhelming. Imagine what it's going to be like getting down the road a little bit. Okay, quickly moving to question five. Explain, we revel in hope of the glory of God. What does that phrase mean? First of all, is it something now or something in the future? We revel in the glory of God? Full on yet? Someone has described it as an inner joyful confidence.

Okay, I like that. When you get on to chapter 8, verse 17, it says that if we are children, then we are heirs also and heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ. If indeed we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him. So there is a difference. I want to point out there is a difference to behold God's glory. There is another thing to enter into it. Now, would it be correct for me to say that we can, while we are here on the earth, behold God's glory?

2 Corinthians 3.18 says sure, how about entering into it? How about what? Entering into it.

Colossians 3.4 says when Christ who is our life shall be manifested, then shall we also with him be manifested, is a great word, in glory. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God, so this is a future thing. I think it is. And there's a rejoicing about that. So it's present, I mean the rejoicing is present. You're excited about it. Yeah.

And you see it, some of it, but it's like 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, you behold the glory of the Lord dimly or reflectively off of the word. But imagine in the future when all of that's gone away and now it's face to face. Doesn't it say when we see him in the light? Yeah.

Instantaneous conformity. For some of you that will be a surprise. It's actually from the Greek, it's present middle voice. So we participate in that. We do. In the rejoicing. Yeah. Isn't that cool? Yeah, it's present, which is continuous, but we participate. So we participate in this joy. There goes your crummy attitude.

And where you first see this is in John 17, when the Lord Jesus says, the glory that you have given me, I have given them. Now who's doing the talking now? It's Christ himself as a man. having asked the Father to glorify him as a man with exactly the same glory he had before the world began. That means the full on glory of God manifested through a man, Christ. And then he says, I gave it to them too. Who is he talking about?

Only you guys have become elders? Romans we haven't left the earth yet. No, we haven't and we never do. Isn't that something? That's why I say this is just the beginning. We're just starting. Is that the second one? Yes. Okay, so we'll pick up with six next time. Let's close.

Dear Father, how we thank you for the grace that we already have been shown and given us And we do exalt in the future glory that will be revealed in us. And we thank you for this grace. Wow. And I guess if we were to ask anything, we would ask that we would continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his precious name. Amen.