Lesson 7a

I thought I would start out by just over the next probably three lessons we're getting down to the conclusions of the argument that Paul's been making all the way back from chapter 1 verse 18 and what I've noticed in preparing for the classes is that When he starts to, especially this week and next week, he starts to hone in on what humankind really is in terms of sinning.

It can be depressing. It really can be depressing, you know, because I know most of you pretty well and you don't think you're what he's talking about, but trust me, you are. And it's really interesting to kind of endure through those verses and it sets up a greater understanding I think of the grace that will be provided here in a few verses so it's really cool. So today we're in lesson 7 Romans chapter 3 verse 1 through 8. So somebody read that, that's probably the best way to start. Somebody can read Or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not.

Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged. that if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man. Certainly not. For then how will God judge the world? For if the truth of God has increased in my life to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, let us do evil that good may come? as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, their condemnation is just.

Okay, you get the idea. We're still sort of dealing with the Jews, and the Jews had an advantage. Did they have an advantage? Yeah, they did, and we'll get into that. But the first question, hopefully it's a long question that you can comprehend since God requires subjection of heart from the Jews which he does and at the same time honors a like subjection of heart in the Gentiles understand that so far what value is there in the very institution of the system of Judaism instituted in fact by God himself what value is there in Judaism Is that subjection of the heart? Is that concerning to you? Is that related to it in any way? Well, the point is that is circumcision, the whole religion of Judaism which includes circumcision, what value is there in that institution?

Verse 2 says, great in every respect. First of all, they were entrusted with the oracles of God. Wow. That's something. Anybody else that you know of that was trusted in the oracles of God? No. So I would say, from an advantage standpoint, that's a huge advantage. Despite their unfaithfulness. The Newell's Roman says, Inescible, eternal advantage despite their unfaithfulness. Isn't that interesting?

Huge advantage. It put them in a unique position, didn't it? Of being the only nation to whom the will of God was made known. They're the only nation. So if in 200 A.D. you were born in Beijing, China, what kind of chance did you have? You didn't. What if you lived in the western hemisphere? What kind of chance did you have? What if you lived in Syria? It's interesting that God brought into existence the Jewish nation and gave them his oracles. He made these things known to them and they're the only ones he did it for. His counsel and his ways were made manifest in former times.

As a result, he reminds them in Amos 3.2, the only, you only I have known, of all the families of the earth."

That's kind of spooky, isn't it? That the Jews would be the only one, the only nation. Why did God do it that way? Do you remember? Why did He do it that way? Why did He call out a nation, starting with Abraham, create this nation and then give them, only them, his oracles. Why did he do it that way? Nobody. Because he's sovereign and he had the right to do it. He had the right to do it. Up until Abraham, what had he proposed for the people of the earth? What were some of the events that took place from Adam to Abraham? flood. So he wiped out the whole humanity except for what six people?

Wiped them all out. So he in essence started over with a new family. Did that work? No, it didn't. Then he did this thing on the Tower of Babel where he spread them all out by changing their languages. That didn't work. Didn't work in what way? It didn't work that they didn't glorify God and honor him. I think it worked. You do? You mean the purpose of spreading them around?

I think it worked for his purposes, maybe not from the perspective of removing sinfulness from humanity, but I mean, here we're working with sinful man, right? And so God's will in a sinful state, other than wrath and judgment, you know, there's grace there. Like the fact that he even permitted Noah and his family to survive was gracious and then permitting people to be spread during the Tower of Babel was even gracious still because what they deserved was far worse even. I don't have an argument with that but the issue being that all of the things that he did up until including Israel did any of these people subject themselves to him in their hearts?

Well, they were believers. Some. Here and there. But his, you know, God deals with, tries to deal with all of humanity because he loves every one of his creatures. But then he, I think he went from dealing with the whole group to one nation. Right? And he created the nation through Abraham, gave them special treatment, gave them special blessings, Did they do what God wanted them to do?

No, he didn't. They didn't. Individuals did. But that's the other thing about Israel, is that God deals with Israel as a nation. We're so used to God dealing with us as individuals that that's the way we think he's always operated. He hasn't. He's dealt with the nation as a nation, Israel.

So, you know, there weren't six bad guys in the nation that went down. The whole nation went down. because the leaders were representative of the people in terms of their hearts. And that's true in every society, every culture, every country. The leaders really do represent what the culture is and what the morality is of the mass.

So he gives special treatment to these Jews In Deuteronomy 4 it says, And what nation is there so great, who has God so near to them, as the Lord our God is in all things, that we call upon Him for? And what nation is there so great, that has statutes and judgments so righteous as all of this law? See, he's special focus and care to the Jews.

How did they do with what they had? Not too well. So, question two is just because one has a spiritual advantage, does it translate into a benefit? You know, Mike, before we get to that one, did you ever answer the question why? Why he did the Jews? Yeah. I think that after Adam fell, one of the things, the next big thing he did was the flood.

And you can't say, well, that didn't work. Well, God knew it wasn't going to work, but he did it to demonstrate what he's really trying to show is what the heart of man is really all about. So that didn't work out, did it? Did any of the things he did, including Judaism, ever work out to the point that he wanted it to, where they would honor him and their heart would be submissive to God in general? No, it didn't. Answer, no. That's my answer.

So why them? Why didn't he pick the Italians? He tried to pick the Irish, but they were all drinking. Because we needed a Savior, God chose the people. He brought us the Messiah through the Jews. We needed to know that if we give a bunch of rules and regulations, we won't be able to keep them. Do you think the Jews knew that? I don't think so. I think they knew they couldn't keep them, but they were doing their best and every year they sacrificed an animal. Well, they were sacrificing animals 24-7 to cover their sins.

So, you know, it's interesting that God has a purpose for man. Go back to Genesis. Why did he create man? Why did he do it? For his glory. But why a human being that has intelligence and emotions and a will, why one of those? Why didn't he just create a bunch of angels or a bunch of Labradors? He wanted somebody like himself who could appreciate him, who could receive his love and love him back, who would be submissive to him as the Creator, and he could bless them as a creature, right? Once Adam sinned, that whole thing went out the window.

Do you see that? The point of these next verses is to prove to the reader that eventually he gets to the point that none are righteous and none seek after God. except for Republicans. None. None. And that's the point he's trying to make, including the Jews who had special privileges. They didn't do it either.

And so what he's doing down through history, well, he starts with everybody, then he starts up again, then he does these other things. And then he says, well, you know, I'm just going to pick this. I'm going to create this one group of human beings, starting with Abraham, we call them Jews, and we'll see if they'll do it. I'll give them special privileges, I'll give them my oracles, I'll give them the law, I'll give them all of this stuff, and then we'll see if they won't honor me. Point is, guess what? It's almost like the whole Old Testament is designed to prove that there's nothing savable in man, no matter who they are.

They did preserve His Word. Thanks to Him. It's like saying that the Catholic Church copied the Bible over those years just to preserve God's Word. Thanks to God it wasn't to them. They didn't. Yet they did and they didn't. But look what the Jews did by the time Christ comes along. They have another religion in place so that they won't screw up the one that God gave them. So what Judaism was at the time of Christ was not anything like what Moses got on the mountain. It wasn't even close. We would have argument, we would have issue with anybody that God chose.

Right? I mean, it could have been the Chinese, it could have been the Asians, it could have been the Africans. Sure. We would be sitting there having the same conversation regardless of who it was. That's right. And they would have done the same thing. I mean, because they're sinful. They're different in that respect, but they would have dropped the ball. They would have. And they did. Just like the Jews did. Sure they did. But were they, were the Jews privileged? Absolutely. Yeah, they were.

Because they were chosen. Yeah, and they were given lots and lots of privilege that no other group of human beings were given. So that goes to what I was trying to get at, the why. It goes back to what Durant said. He's sovereign. He could have chosen anybody, but he chose them. That's the why. He did because he could.

Abraham represents a faithful decision at the very head of that entire nation. That's right. and that there was faith at the beginning that God recognized and it was a faith out of a very secular belief system and so when Abraham came to believe and then as he progressed through his trust in the Lord and with his children and his wife and so forth there was faith there and it was acknowledged by God as being a good thing But, nonetheless, we would have an issue with whoever he chose, no matter what. In the sense that we would just be like, why? But the answer is what Courtney and I would have said, that's the way of the Lord. He gave Abraham an opportunity to be faithful to what he promised to him, and Abraham believed it.

Yeah, and he was going to do it whether Abraham believed him or not. We don't know. Yeah, we do know, because he said, here's what I'm going to do. And Abraham, he was going to do it whether Abraham believed him or not. It's a unilateral covenant. This is what I'm going to do, Abraham.

But he allowed man's will to be in a man's way. Yes, he did. So that's cool. At least we're not talking robotic. But like Courtney's saying, God is sovereign. And through his sovereignty and who he is, he can get men to do whatever he wants them to do. And they'll willingly do it. He dwells in eternity anyway, so he knew what the outcome would be before he created it. Yeah, he did. He did it anyway. That's an amazing thing. I talked to Courtney one day and we decided we wouldn't have done it that way. Don't reveal our plans. Yeah, we'd have flushed them off. Through Israel, all nations will be blessed. And have been. No question. No question. So does Israel really do have an advantage? And does their advantage translate into a benefit to them? What did they have? What did the Jews have that was a benefit to them?

The prophets who gave God's word. What does oracles mean? Oracles? They had the words of God. Yeah, yeah. They had circumcision. They had an environment that no other nation had. They also had training. God was very faithful to them. He showed them by giving them the law And even before the law, working with the patriarchs, you know, it says in Hebrews 1 that God before spoke to us by the prophets. He communicated with them, showed them what he wanted. How did they deal with it?

I think they ignored it as a nation. I really do. And once you do that, who's to blame? You are. The nation is. God isn't to blame because God presents to every nation, He presents them a hope of salvation. He gives them an opportunity, starting with Adam. What opportunity did He give Adam to be saved? He gave Adam a remedy to cover his sins.

What was it? The skins, right? Did Adam accept them or reject them? He accepted them. That's faith, right? God offers a remedy. Adam says, okay, I'll accept your remedy. Same thing with Cain and Abel. Did Abel accept God's remedy? Did Cain? No, he didn't. He didn't.

So I think that that points up what's coming all the way down now, however many centuries later, that the Jews were given special opportunity that no other nation had and they, how do I say this, they didn't believe God. Now how can you be in a position like a Jew with all of that information and you're just not a person of faith?

Would you say the Hasidic Jews in our neighborhood are people of faith? Yeah. What do you think? Do you think they are? They believe in something. Good point. Everybody's people of faith. It doesn't matter where they're at. Yeah. Do you think they're people of godly faith? No. Not the same God. Yeah, and not the same principles, right? So, question three is, how does a Jew get salvation? Like us. Like us? Yeah, the same way Gentiles. How? Well, tell me how. Believe. Yeah, they believe. What do they have to believe? faith in the facts. And what should they believe? The gospel of the glory of Christ, right?

So that's the way a Jew got saved. It's interesting now, if you think about the nation of Israel, God deals with them as a nation. There's individuals in the nation that are people and men of faith, but they don't represent the whole nation. So the whole nation suffers, even though there are men of faith. When they went into captivity, there was always a group there that were faithful. They went into captivity with them, but they were the faithful men, and God would deal through them. It's like when God, through Moses, led them out of Egypt, down to the Jordan River. God said to them, look, go across the river, this land I've given you. What did the Jews do? They didn't go. Why didn't they go? They didn't have the faith to go in.

So out in the desert they go and what happens to them all? Except for a couple of them. They all die. And then they come back and with Joshua and Caleb leading them, they go in and possess the land. Joshua and Caleb went the 40 years in the desert with them.

They were the men faithful. But the whole nation went in and not the doubters. Interesting. So, were the oracles of God to be distributed to all men by the Jews? Yes, that was their purpose. Were they really? Yes. So, what was their attitude about these oracles? They were pretty possessive of them. They said, we got them and you can have them.

So, why didn't they present them, or preach them, or teach them. Why didn't they do that? They looked at Gentiles as dogs. Why would they do that? Because they thought they were privileged? They thought they were good. Really? Do you think they understood that they had this obligation from God to spread the oracles or distribute them amongst all men? Think they knew that?

In other words, I had an argument one time with Art Lauther years ago, and I said to him, I said, one of the problems with Judaism is that there weren't any evangelists. He said, oh yeah, there were. I said, really? Name one. And he named a couple of guys, but the point is that I think they had a responsibility, like we do as believers, to spread the gospel.

They didn't do it. Was it just because they were stubborn or afraid, or why didn't they do it? Why do you think they didn't do it? And when we say they, we're talking about the nation, right? You got your guys that went to bat. You know, I mean, people played the game. Isaiah's, you know, and not necessarily faithfully to the end, but nonetheless, we have the Old Testament prophets to speak to that point.

But as a nation, they didn't play the game that they were given. They were supposed to be an example. They were supposed to be... They were supposed to teach the world how God thinks in relationship to man and his attitude towards sin and the opportunity for salvation. Sure. But, your point is, there's the 1% who essentially was shut down. And the rest of the nation had no interest and held tight those words of God and did not let them out of their special possession. Yeah.

In Psalm 67, you don't have to go there, God be gracious to us and bless us and cause His face to shine upon us. Selah. Now listen to this next part. that your way may be known on the earth, your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you will judge the peoples with uprightness and guide the nations on the earth. Selah. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its produce. God, our God, blessed us. God blesses us that all the ends of the earth may fear Him." So, pretty awesome responsibility.

You don't ever hear a Jew talk about that. Like a modern day Jew? What's that? Like a modern day? Yeah. Well, think about it. When the Lord Jesus sent the disciples out two by two, who did He tell them to go to? Just the nation of Israel. Yeah. Yeah. See, he knows that if the people he's called to do the work that he's called them to do, if they're not right, then they can't do the work. See? John the Baptist's ministry was to who? To Jews. Yet, Daniel's ministry seems to be to more than the Jews, isn't it? Evidence by the Magi.

So I'm just sitting here thinking. So then Abraham believed God. Yeah, he did. So faith has always been an issue. Always the issue. But then the nation decided they didn't want to believe God. They asked him for a law, right? And a king. in our neighborhood, they have faith in the law, not necessarily in God. That's right. They have faith in the law of God.

And they spend all their time there. And what's interesting is that with all 600 plus laws, it's impossible. Any rational person in a pretty short time spending time with God's law, you've got to come to the conclusion, I can't do this. There's no way that I'm going to be able to do this. Right? You think the Jews came to that conclusion? As a nation in general?

What's interesting about Abraham is that he was accounted righteous because he believed God, but then you look at his history over the next 40 years, and not too cool. But he already was righteous because he believed him. He already had a right standing before God, even though he didn't behave himself as though he were a godly man a lot of times. He sells his wife into Pharaoh's harem. That's a good move.

So, even with a Jew, is there a moment in which he believes God or believes What, what God tells him in the law? And the law told him, basically, if you do this, I will bless you. If you don't do it, I'll curse you. So, God, I have faith that you're going to do both of those things. Does that save you? What do you think? I think the difference is, and what you're talking about, is that the difference is faith in a Savior, not the information about Him. Salvation is a person who saves. A Savior. And a recognition that you need a Savior.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right about that. I think one of the most miraculous things is that the Jew and the Gentile became one man which makes up the body of Christ. Oh. You know how That's a big deal that now there's no enmity between Gentiles and Jews. I mean, one man who's the body of Christ. A new man. A new man. And so, well, the Jewish people may think, you know, we are really very special. God really turned that upside down and says, you are all, after Pentecost, You became the body of Christ. Everyone who believed Jews and Gentiles are the body of Christ.

Don't you find it interesting that one of the conclusions you can draw through the first part of the study of Romans is that the entire Old Testament, for lack of a better way to explain it, why is it there? What's the reason that God went through all of that trouble? With all of those people, with all of their failure, Why did he do it? I think he did it for one reason, to prove that you can't do it.

That's verse 20, right? It says, "...because by the works of the law, the flesh will be justified in its sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of Satan." Also, Galatians, which the law was to tutor, depended on Christ. By tutoring us how? By showing us you can't do it. So the conclusion of the Old Testament, all of those nations and all, is that you couldn't do it yourself.

And what the law was designed to do was, OK, you want to do it, here's how you get it done. Here are the rules. And if you can do this, you will be righteous in yourself. Isn't that interesting? You'll be righteous in yourself. Well, that's no reward. I don't ever want to stand before God and say, I did it all. I'm righteous in myself. What do you think, God? Don't you have to accept me now?

Answer, no. Here's the thing. If you look at who God is, you could say He's perfect. And He has an environment in which we are all participating in and will all participate in. But in order to be in that environment, we've got to be perfect too. Which means He's got to do the work. If the Old Testament proved anything, it proved that man couldn't do it. So what does God do?

He accomplishes everything that needs to be done. everything through the cross of Christ and his resurrection. He gets it all done. Everything's in place. And then he goes to man and says, if you believe me, I'll give it all to you for free. Right? You don't have to do anything other than believe me. That's all you have to do. And if you do believe me, you get all of the benefits of all the work that I did. That's the big difference. In the Old Testament is, you got to work. even though your salvation is by faith, trusting God. But once you did, you had to perform.

If you were a Jew like Abraham, and you were accounted righteous and then you sinned, did you need to confess your sins to God in order to stay righteous? What do you think? Did Abraham suffer the same consequence that we suffer, which is loss of fellowship? I mean, I look at Abraham as the village idiot.

He can't get from here to next week without God carrying him along. And 40 years of carrying him before he could stand on his own two feet. Because when God called him to sacrifice his son, that was the 40 year mark. He was finally grown up enough to say, I trust you to the point that I will sacrifice the son of promise to you because I know you're the giver of life. He wouldn't have done that at 35 years. He wouldn't have done it because he wasn't mature enough.

Can I move on now? Does the faith of God cease to operate because some despise it or oppose it? Or put it another way, can they annul the truth by their refusal to do it? Does the faith of God cease to operate because some despise it or oppose it? It sounds like an inane question, but trust me, Christians think this way. They think because they didn't operate that God changed his mind. Don't you see that true? Don't you think that to be true in your own experience? You think you've done something that's unfaithful and God has changed his mind about me. None of you have ever experienced that?

I must be the only one. Say it a different way. If I sin, I think that my sinning has changed my status and standing with God. In a negative way? You're separated from God. You're in fellowship. Am I separated or do I lose fellowship? They're not the same thing. I say separated. Separated?

So I lost my salvation? I used to think that I'd fallen from grace. That verse really impacted me. And there were times where I thought my sin was so great that I'd fallen from grace and I wasn't sure if God was I did. Yeah, I think we all have been in a place like that. Yeah, I agree. Is it God's faith or is it our faith? My faith. Yeah. Have you not... I was talking to a guy Friday at lunch and he said to me, he said, is there...

He said, every once in a while I will get this thought in my mind that, you know, back in my life I did some pretty horrible things. And did God really forgive me for those? Because I still feel guilty about that. And that was such a horrible thing. It's just unforgivable.

So I said to him, I never had a thought like that. I said, call Courtney, he knows how. The point is, is that The point of the question is this, no matter what we do, no matter what the Jews did, it doesn't change who God is, and what his agenda is, and what his purpose is. It doesn't change it. Ever.

Because he's God. What's pretty cool about that is that that's actually our motivation. Our motivation to trust him is not because of fear of punishment or fear of loss. It's because of His love, it's because of His grace that we're motivated to trust Him. Not fear of loss.

But I think Christianity operates in a fear-based system, which is what shackles people to the pew. Keeps them going, keeps them serving. You've got to make sure people feel like they've got something to lose in order to keep them going. But what's really great is that that's not See, and I think it takes a while to learn that, because so many, especially young believers, they're all excited about their salvation for a while, and then sin starts to creep back into their life. And so they stop doing some of the things that they were doing, reading and praying and hanging out with other believers, because they think their behavior has changed God's view of them. And you know what's interesting about that? Underneath of that is pride. Because I think I can do something that will cause God to react in a certain way.

I can sin so much that He'd get angry with me. Or He's sad. No, He's not. No, He's not. Or this question I love. If you are more sorry for your sins than the person sitting next to you, do you get forgiven first? Boy, I asked that question in that group in Parker and half the hands went up. Yeah, that's right, you've got to be sorry. I said, what, you do?

See, it's really important, the verse says, it may never be, but rather God be found true, though every man a liar. Man's reception or rejection of the truth has no bearing whatever upon the truth itself. None. It remains in its solemn, solitary grandeur unalterable, invincible, and irrevocable, while man's most violent opposition is merely his self-destruction against an immovable rock. God is true, and it matters not that man opposes his truth, because man is false.

And I think lots of what problems sometimes with believers who get stalled in their spiritual growth is that they're right there. They think that whatever is going on inside of them, that they somehow have caused God to change His attitude or His opinion about them because they haven't been faithful or because they don't agree with this or agree with that. The great thing about God is that He never changes and He is so careful to explain to us, here's who I am, and here's what the deal is, and I won't change. So what does that say to a stubborn, self-centered man?

If you comply, it's great. If you don't, it's going to be trouble. Isn't that what it says? I think that's what it says. You know, with the hungry heart yesterday or something, I think it was yesterday, I forget how it went, but something to that effect, that if you do not I'm going to use the word submit to God, then you've got trouble. And you're going to have trouble. You're going to have trouble anyway. Do you see that? Is that a principle that fits in? Yeah, I think so.

The faithfulness of the Jew, in the Newel, he said the faithlessness here of the Jew is not his failure to believe God's oracles. What is here before us is the Jews' attitude towards the great primary privilege and responsibility of that nation as a depository of the divine oracles. So what Newell is saying is that their failure to believe, it isn't that they didn't believe God's oracles, it's the fact that their attitude towards the privilege and responsibility that they had as a nation, they didn't appreciate what they had.

Do I arrive with that question? Dare I go to six? It's a long question. If our unrighteousness has resulted in such a manifestation of the glory of God's righteousness, why then should we be punished? Would He not be heartless in pouring out vengeance on mankind, to the Jew in particular? So, verse 6 says, this is merely a man's question, and the answer is decisive. May it never be, for otherwise how will God judge the world?

Do you see what's going on underneath there again? What is man trying to do? What is he trying to do with God? He wants a piece of the axon. He wants to be involved in the decision-making process. He wants to change God's mind so that he has a little space in there where he can do some determining. It's so subtle because we don't really understand so many times. We go to God and we pray, right? We say, God, I've got this problem and here's how you can fix it. What did we just do? We played God with God. We told him how to do it.

So Newell says the Jews would certainly approve of his judging the Gentile world, but the Jews' case was morally the same. In fact, it was worse. If the Jews' privileges are considered, moreover, the very execution of judgment is a part of the display of God's glory and righteousness and cannot be dispensed with. God went right on fulfilling what the Oracle said despite the unfaithfulness of us to whom they were committed or to the Jews to whom they were committed. In fact, by means of our sinful Jewish history, God's prophecies concerning our disobedience were fulfilled before the whole world from Moses on.

Isn't that interesting? Okay. We'll stop there. That's the second bell, right? So we'll stop, we'll pick up at seven. There's only a couple of more questions, so let's close. Father, how we thank you for showing us that you are immovable, not only in terms of your judgment, but as we will learn here soon, in your grace also, and the way in which you operate to bless us. So if we were to ask anything that we would learn just to sit Underneath your grace and receive it and we pray in your son's precious name. Amen