Light Brings Salt
Volume 2, Issue 45
Iron Range Bible
Church
Dedicated to the Systematic Exposition of the Word of God
Grace in the Book of Romans
Roy L.
Aldrich
Note: In my research for the doctrine of Grace that
we're working on I ran across an article in one of the Journals, Bib Sac, that
I thought some good things to say so will over the next several newsletters
present it so that you can see the awesomeness of God's grace for us as Church
age believers in Christ from another perspective. He taught theology in the 30's through the
50's. He was a colleague of L. S. Chafer. P/T
Introduction.
It has
long been recognized that Romans has a peculiar and unique place of importance
in the canon of Scripture. Martin Luther wrote:
“Forasmuch as this epistle to the Romans is a light and way unto the
whole Scriptures, I think it meet that every Christian man not only know it, by
rote and without any book, but also exercise himself therein evermore
continually, as with the daily run of the soul.” (Quoted in Romans, W.
R. Newell)
Here Luther calls Romans, “a light
and way unto the whole Scripture.” Others have expressed the same thought by
calling it the pivotal or foundational epistle of the Word of God.
After the fall of man salvation
was proclaimed by God in the promise of Gen 3:15-the seed of the woman was to
bruise the head of the serpent. As the history of fallen man continues in the
Old Testament, God’s salvation is again and again proclaimed; but it is never
completely explained. Job desired such an explanation. He asked, “How should man
be just with God?” (Job 9:2). Job did not doubt his own salvation. He knew he
was saved by faith and declared, “Though he slay me,
yet will I trust in him.” Still Job wanted to know how a righteous God could
justify sinners. Job believed the fact of salvation but he wanted to know the
“how” of salvation.
The explanation that Job desired
was not given to him, nor was it given to any other Old Testament saint. The Old Testament
will be examined in vain for the complete explanation of the “how” of
salvation. The water of life was there for every thirsty soul, but how God
could provide it for sinners was not revealed.
When the New Testament books are
examined in their present order, the answer to Job’s question is not
immediately given. The four gospels present a fourfold picture of our Lord, and
tell of his life, death, and resurrection; but these gospels still do not
explain the gospel. In them God’s salvation is proclaimed and the way of
salvation is made clear, but the complete “how” of salvation does not appear.
The book of Acts is a transitional book. It leads out of Judaism into the
freedom of Christianity, but even in this book of evangelism there is no
systematic explanation of the gospel.
Romans is next in the New Testament and
here for the first time in the Bible God’s salvation is explained. Here for the
first time, is found a systematic unfolding of how God can be just and the
justifier of the ungodly. The books that follow Romans in the New Testament are
built upon it as the foundation. The books that precede Romans in the Bible
anticipate Romans for their completeness.
Grace Explains the Order of
Doctrine in Romans.
Orthodoxy is not only dependent
upon faith in the Bible but it is dependent upon perceiving the correct order
of doctrine taught in the Bible. A cart and horse are useful if put together in
the right order, but everyone has heard of the proverbial impasse created by
putting the cart before the horse. Romans presents in
systematic order the great doctrines of God’s salvation. The general division
of Romans is quite familiar to every Bible student. The first eight chapters
contain the doctrine of salvation from the penalty and power of sin. The last
five chapters (twelve to sixteen) contain the teaching of Christian conduct and
service. Chapters
President Lewis Sperry Chafer
points out that a major
distinction between the teachings of law and the teachings of
grace is seen in the varying order between the divine blessing and the human
obligation.
“When the human obligation is presented first, and the divine blessing
is made to depend on the faithful discharge of that obligation, it is of and in
conformity with pure law. When the divine blessing is presented first, and the
human obligation follows, it is of and in conformity with pure grace.” (From Grace, p. 182 by
L.S. Chafer)
It will be seen that the order of
doctrine in Romans is the order in conformity with pure grace. The first eight
chapters of Romans present the divine blessing, while the last five chapters
present the human obligation. This is the correct order of doctrine for
Christian experience.
Perhaps the most prevalent error of modern religion is an
error in the order of Romans truth. Jude speaks of certain false teachers of
the last days as "autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted;" (Jude 12b). Such teachers are evidently those who
attempt to produce the fruit of salvation without the root of salvation. They
are those who attempt to initiate Christian experience with Romans chapters
twelve to sixteen instead of with Romans one to eight.
Romans chapter twelve begins with
a gracious exhortation to surrender to God, but this word is to the believer
who is already the recipient of the divine blessing of salvation. “I urge you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and
holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which
is your spiritual service of worship.” (Rom 12:1).
It is evident that this verse
introduces us, not to the beginning of Christian experience, but to what should
be the fruit of Christian experience. The Oxford Group makes the mistake of
taking this as the starting point of Christian experience. Surrender is
the great word of the Buchmanite, but God cannot be
pleased by the surrender of an unregenerate heart. Faith is the one and only
condition of salvation in the Bible, and not surrender. The failure of the Buchmanite is a failure in the order of Romans truth and
therefore a failure to understand grace.
Romans 12:3–8 presents the human
obligation of Christian service. Many believe that, if they try to serve God
according to this pattern, they will be saved. They fail to see that service
here is the fruit of salvation, not the means of obtaining salvation. Romans
4:5 should first have been studied and believed. The mistake is again a mistake
in the order of Romans truth, which is the order of grace.
Romans 13:8–10 presents the human
obligation to the exercise of love. The writer was looking at a Sunday School
Quarterly sometime ago, which contained a lesson entitled, “Becoming Children
of God.” The lesson referred the reader to Matthew 22:34–40 for the explanation
of how to become a child of God. This is the passage in which the Lord points
out that the two greatest commandments are those concerning love to God and
love to one’s neighbor. Love is clearly the greatest of all the virtues, but to
teach that love is the condition of salvation is rank heresy. The failure is in
putting the human obligation first, instead of the divine blessing.
Enough has been said to show that
the order of doctrine in Romans is the order of grace. The divine blessing is
first and the human obligation follows. This is the pattern for all the
teachings of grace. Only infinite grace can explain a salvation in which God
first does everything for the sinner, before the sinner is asked to do anything
for God.
The Doctrine of Sin in Romans
Excludes Every Remedy but Grace.
When Samuel was sent to the house of Jesse to anoint a king
over
No man, unaided by inspiration,
could ever have written Romans
Romans 1:18–32 presents God’s
picture of Gentile sin and apostasy. The apostasy of the Gentile world after
the time of Noah is in view. The nations turned from the true knowledge of God,
which they possessed in the beginning, to complete apostasy. The apostasy began
with no thankfulness. It developed through confidence in worldly wisdom. It
finally resulted in universal idolatry. See Romans 1:21–23. Those
who boasted of their wisdom ended by practicing the most foolish thing
possible-idolatry. It is interesting to note that this age, which boasts
of its wisdom, will also end in the foolishness of idolatry. Men will bow down
to the image of the beast described in Revelation 13.
In the second chapter of Romans
the Spirit of God turns the Jew inside out, and shows that on the inside he is
no different from the Gentile. The verdict for the Jew is stated in Romans 2:1:
“for you
who judge practice the same things.”
The Jew is not saved because he has the law. He is rather condemned,
because he has the law which he does not keep.
Romans 3:9–18 concludes the divine
picture of human nature inside out. Here it is shown that all men, both Jews
and Gentiles, are under sin. All are without righteousness. All are without
spiritual understanding. All are even without spiritual curiosity, for it is
said, “There is none that seeks after God.” Such a sinful character results in
only sinful conduct. To sum up, God sees nothing good in men, but only that
which is essentially sinful in both character and conduct.
What hope is there for man in such
a state? The law only condemns. Good works cannot be produced. Man’s only hope
is in the mercy and grace of God.
In a Federal court room the judge
was passing sentence on a number of offenders who had previously been tried and
found guilty. Each one, as he faced the judge at the bar, was given an
opportunity to make a statement before sentence was passed. One by one the men
would take advantage of this opportunity to try to justify or excuse themselves. Finally, however, one man faced the judge, who
said simply: “I’m guilty, Judge. I cast myself upon the mercy of the court.”
God has turned human nature inside
out in Romans chapters one to three, in order that men might say, “I am guilty,
and I cast myself upon the mercy and grace of God.” If men were logical, this
is what they would do, for the doctrine of sin in Romans has excluded every
possible remedy except grace.
Grace
Is God’s Law of Salvation.
Romans 3:21–31 is the very heart
of the doctrinal portion of this important epistle. Here is found the
explanation of how God can be just and the justifier of the ungodly. No
complete exposition of this passage is attempted, but only enough is said to indicate
the relation of grace to this important revelation.
The sinner is saved by receiving
the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ. Having received this
righteousness, the sinner is declared to be righteous, or is justified. God is
free to bestow this righteousness, because Christ has paid on the cross every
demand of the law and of the character of God against sin. Christ is therefore
the propitiation or the propitiatory sacrifice, and this explanation of the
cross shows how God can be a righteous justifier of sinners who believe in
Jesus. The righteousness of God which is necessary for salvation is not
attained by keeping the law, but is received by faith in Christ. It is not a
righteousness to be achieved in any way, but a righteousness to be submitted to
by man. In Romans 10:3 Paul points out that the tragic failure of
A righteousness which cannot be
earned, or merited, or achieved, is necessarily a righteousness which has its
source in grace. It is God’s loving-favor to the undeserving,
that is the fountain source of justification. This is the clear
declaration of Romans 3:24: “Being justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Grace is therefore, God’s law of
salvation.
Next week we'll pick up part 2 of
this very instructive article.