Classic Christianity – Book of Romans P19 (12-09-19)
Synopsis
The first four books of Romans laid the foundation of the need of all mankind for salvation. Both Jew and Gentile were addressed as both spiritually dead, sinners by nature. Whether under the law or apart from the law, they are both spiritually dead since birth. Sin and death entered the world through one man’s sin, Adam, the first created being.
Now, in chapter 5, Paul is addressing the solution of man’s problem. Man’s problem is greater than sin. His greatest problem is he is spiritually dead. Sin caused his death. So until the problem of sin is taken away, salvation cannot be offered. Now, two fundamental questions need to be understood. What is death? What is salvation?
When Adam chose for himself to decide right from wrong, good and evil, he died. God had told him that the day you decide for yourself that you do not need Me, and choose for yourself right from wrong, good from evil, you shall die. Adam did that and he died. Death is the absence of life. Adam, when he was created, was created with the life of God in him. When Adam sinned, he died. Death is the absence of life. He died to who vacated him, which is the Spirit of God. Since then all men are born in Adam, in his state of death, dead to God, without the life of God in him.
Now, man must understand his condition of death. What meaning would the cross have for him, otherwise? Every man has a longing in his heart for God. They sense there is something empty inside. They look for meaning and purpose to life. That is why man asks questions like, “Why am I here?”, “Where am I going?” or “What is the purpose of life?” Many a person have had thoughts about how meaningless life is. The reason for all this is that man is born spiritually dead.
Without the Spirit of God living in him, man is longing to be filled. The reason for the feelings of emptiness inside is because the Spirit of God is not there. Man’s most basic problem is he is dead and in need of life. When man is dead, he runs to one affair to another, one pleasure to another, one party to another, one drink to another. Others even pursue religion, of all kinds, and even goes to church thinking that by doing good, he will be okay. Man just keeps himself busy so he does not have to stop and think about his condition, so he does not have to pause and think about his condition. All of these things are symptoms of man’s condition of death, spiritual death.
Many people think that salvation is getting your sins forgiven. But that is not true according to scriptures, as we read about in Romans 5. When Jesus died on a cross, he took away the sins of the entire world, all sins back to Adam and forward to eternity, of men yet to be born. We were reconciled to God through the death of His Son while we were still sinners. So if salvation was getting your sins forgiven, then that would be universal salvation. But that is not salvation.
Salvation is being saved from the consequences of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is the resurrected life of Christ Jesus. The cross prepared men for salvation. For if sin had not been taken away, the next time man sinned, he would die again. So, when Jesus shed his blood on a cross, we were reconciled to God, for the sins of the entire world was taken away. The verdict is guilty. The punishment was set, which is death for sin. I was doomed to die, but Jesus took it all for me, as well as for the sins of the entire world. He provided justice for us. We were reconciled at the cross.
But we were justified in His resurrection. We are saved through his life. Forgiveness does not give life. Life gives life. Jesus, being God in the flesh, is the only person who had a life to lay down, but he was also the only one who was raised to new life, with eternal life to give to man. Jesus is the only spiritual life available to man. This life must be received by faith.
Baptism is a visual picture of what Jesus accomplished for us. Baptism of water does not save you, but the receiving of new spiritual life, a baptism of the Spirit of God, is what saves you. When a person places his complete trust alone in what Jesus accomplished in his death, burial and resurrection, he has crossed over from death to life. Salvation is the receiving of new life, of what Jesus told Nicodemus about in John 3. Unless a man is born again, that is, receives new spiritual life, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
Now, I commend you to diligently look into the word of God, relying on the Holy Spirit, to reveal to you it’s meaning. Scriptures here in the transcript are provided so you can test and see what God has said. Do not take man’s word for it. You have the scriptures, the word of God, for truth. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and His word is truth. Scripture never came about by the invention of man, but men carried along by the Holy Spirit, proclaimed truth to men, and what was said was written down for our benefit today.
Purchase & Download MP3 Bible Studies
Transcript
Let us turn to Romans 5. Last week we talked about the fact how we came to a “therefore” in this passage in Romans. This book of Romans is, without question, the most phenomenal book that has ever been written on the face of the earth. It is the logic of why you and I need salvation. It is also the way and the means which God provided salvation for all men, Jew and Gentile alike.
From God’s vantage point, He only divides humanity in three ways, the Jew, the Gentile and the Ecclesia, called the church, which is people called out from both Jew and Gentile. The opposite of being a Jew is not being a Christian. The opposite of being a Jew is a Gentile. The opposite of being Gentile is Jew. Christ came to save both, Jew and Gentile alike, identically the same way.
Romans 3:21-23
21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Ephesians 2:14-15
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
He reduced all of humanity down to state of spiritual death. When Adam came into this world, and stood at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he, in essence said, “I do not need you, God, to determine right from wrong, good from evil. I will do that on my own. ” God essentially said to Adam that on that day you make that determination as to you being the determining factor, you are going to right from wrong, good from evil, on that day you will surely die to God. You will be alive to yourself, on your own, to make your own decisions, whenever you refuse to go to God, to go to God’s word for right and wrong, for good and evil, and determine on your own you do not need that instruction. When I decide to make my own rules and regulations, on my own, God says I am dead.
Genesis 2:16
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
From that day forth, man had a problem. It is called spiritual death. That death entered into all humanity. On the day that Adam died, death entered into the world. That death is spiritual death.
Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned
Now, again, what is death? It is the absence of life. What is darkness? The absence of light. The condition of the world is dark. When the sun comes up it dispels the darkness but darkness is the condition of the world. It dispels the darkness. When the sun goes down we just return to our normal state of darkness. On the day man sinned, God had said that you shall surely die.
Romans 8:22-24
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?
The life of God was in Adam when he was created. Adam was created alive bodily, soulishly and spiritually. He was alive in all ways.
Genesis 2:7
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
But God had said, “On the day you eat thereof you shall surely die.” He ate and he died as God had said. The life of God departed from his human spirit. He died spiritually. That human spirit of ours that differentiates us from the animal kingdom, uniquely different from the human kingdom, did not die dead, dead. It died to what vacated it. What vacated the human spirit is God.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
So man is alive and longing for God. That is why man is insatiably religious. That is why every man, we are told, has this God-shaped vacuum in his heart, that can only be filled by His Son, Jesus Christ. That vacuum that was created at spiritual death must be filled or we will die empty. Why does man walk around feeling there is something missing?
Ecclesiastes 1:1-3
1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:2
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”3
What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
Because there is something missing. What is missing is the life of God living in His creation. We cannot function as a man without God living in us because God in the man is indispensable to the humanity of the man. Man can no longer function without God as a light bulb can function without electricity in it, or your car can function without gasoline in it. It cannot function without gasoline. Man cannot function without God living in him as God intended for man to function.
So we go through the motions. We go out seeking and searching like Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes. We try one affair after another affair, one bottle after another bottle, one pleasure after another pleasure, and one activity after another activity. We bury our lives with activity so I do not have to sit back and think what is going on in my life. There are poeple who are constantly involved in entertainment, being around people, partying because I do not have to sit and think how empty I am inside. There are people who travel to all kinds of different places. Why? So they do not have to be still long enough, to be still and know that He is God. It is only when you are still is when you know He is God.
Romans 1:18-20
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
We even go to churches. We go to church and we have to get advice. We do this and then we do that, kind of the opposite of our group. We become “do-do” Christians. A person says, “I do not want to know Jesus. I do not want to know how empty I am inside. I just want activity inside to keep me busy.” That is the condition of man apart from God. God was meant to live in His creation. That is how God designed man, to live in His creation. Apart from that we are not even there. We are like a car without spark plugs in it. We cannot function properly.
Genesis 3:23-24
23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
So this whole book of Romans was explaining how God dealt with the Jew and the Gentile, reducing us both to the same level of spiritual death, and then offering us spiritual life. Now in Romans 5, there is the “therefore”. What is the “therefore” there for? It is because of what he just got through saying in the first four chapters. He wants us to face the fact that the righteous shall live by faith.
Genesis 5:24
Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
We now have reconciliation, which is what took place at the cross.
2 Corinthians 5:19
that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
God died for the sins of the whole world. He did not die for some sins. He died for all sins, all sins of men back to Genesis, all sins back to Adam, and all sins forward to eternity. All men’s sins were dealt with once and for all at the cross, not for some men, but for men. Not some sin, but all sin.
1 John 2:2 (KJV)
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Hebrews 9:12
12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
A gentleman called me the other day on the radio and was studying Calvinism. He asked me, “Do you believe in limited atonement?” I replied, “I do not believe in either one. I do not believe in limited atonement and I do not believe in atonement. Atonement is the covering of sin. That is what took place in the blood of a bull and a goat.
Hebrews 10:1-7
1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6
with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7
Then I said, ‘Here I am – it is written about me in the scroll –
I have come to do your will, my God.’”
Do not insult Jesus that his provision at the cross was the same as that of a bull and a goat. There is no place in the bible where Jesus atoned for sin. In scripture we read that Jesus took away the sins of the whole world.
John 1:29
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Not only did Jesus die for our sins but for the sins of the whole world! Where Calvin was off is where many Christians today are off. That is a belief system thinking that getting sins forgiven is getting salvation. That is where the premise is off. Where the premise is off, everything is off. If you are going to send up a rocket, and it is off by just a fraction down here, does the rocket go to its intended destination? If your premise is off, your findings are off. Your findings in experimentation are no more accurate than the original premise. The premise is “You are saved by getting your sins forgiven.” Nothing can be further from the truth. Your sins are already forgiven. You are saved from a consequence of sin. What is the consequence of sin? Death. Forgiveness does not provide life to the dead. Life provides life to the dead.
Romans 5:10
10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Now, let us turn to the first verse in Romans chapter 5.
Romans 5:1
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
You have peace with God. Until you have peace with God, you cannot experience the peace of God.
Romans 5:2-3
2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,
That is what we talked about last week. Why would you rejoice in your suffering? Because we know suffering produces something.
Romans 5:3
because we know that suffering produces perseverance;
It produces perseverance. When you suffer, you have perseverance. You can either go away from God or you can persevere with God. You can have this attitude that God is going to cause all things to work together for good, to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
That is a promise of God. When I go through a trial or a tribulation, I can make a decision. I heard on television a person who lost his son. He was mad at God. Why was he mad at God? Everyone is going to die. Is it fun to lose a child? No, it is not fun to lose a child. It is heart-breaking. It is out of sync. That happens, does it not? People get killed. There are all kinds of things that cause death to young people. You do not get mad at God because that happened. When you get mad at God, you are going to go in this direction. When you realize that, as bad as that hurts, and it does hurt, God will take it and work it together for good if you let Him.
Romans 5:4
4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.
So there is where we understand that suffering, when you approach suffering with an attitude of God, that it is going to produce in you perseverance, and that perseverance is what is going to produce character in you. It is the kind of character that people want to have. It is the kind of character that when you run into trials and tribulations, you do not see a person crumble under those trials and tribulations. You see a person standing tall, knowing something. As bad as it is, God will take it and work it together for good. God never makes bad good but He can cause it to work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. That produces character and character produces hope. Hope does not disappoint us? Why?
Romans 5:5
5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
So prior to the day of Pentecost, man was basically on his own. He needed the law in order to have tracts, so to speak, to run on. He needed the law as boundaries in which to live. The law was given when they came out of Egypt, to keep them out of total chaos. They lived in slavery for hundreds of years. When you live in slavery, you do not make decisions. So God had to give them laws and instructions. God essentially said, “Here is how you are going to live to keep from total chaos from occurring.” That was a blessing for God to do. That was the tract, the parameters you lived by.
Exodus 6:6
6 “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.’”
God gave the ten commandments to Moses, who then gave them to the people. There were other laws you can read about in Exodus that the Jewish people lived under.
Exodus 20:1-3
12 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
Exodus 20:1-3
18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
The Jewish people took those as a means of righteousness. This was their thinking, “Those who live by them are righteous and those who do not are not so righteous.” So their righteousness was attached to obedience to the law in their thinking. God said, “No, that is not where you are going to get acceptance in the sight of God.”
Romans 3:20
20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
Galatians 2:21
21 “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
The standard of God is a hundred percent perfection. That is why James said this.
James 2:10
10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it..
No man can stand before God in his own righteousness. God prepared a way whereby man could be made righteous, not by our own works, but by the works of the righteous one, who is Christ Jesus.
Romans 5:6
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Christ did not come to save good people. There aren’t any. We walk around thinking we are real good. And we talk about that, saying “He is such a good person.” Jesus said there is no one good but God. When they called Jesus good teacher, he said if you call me good call me God, and if you do not want to call me God, do not call me good. That is a little paraphrase, but that is what he is saying.
Mark 10:17-18
17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good – except God alone.”
Romans 3:11-12
11
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”[Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20]
None of us are good. There is not a person sitting here, that if you park your mind on sin, are not capable of committing it. You can park your mind any place and give into it. So we have to guard our mind. That is why scripture instructs us to guard our mind.
Proverbs 4:23
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
If you do not guard it, Satan will bombard it. That is where all sin starts. Right in the head. If we park our minds on it, we will give into it. It is that simple. That is why he says do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12:12
12 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Get your mind soaked on truth. There is only one truth for us, the word of God. Get your mind soaked on this. Be one person who knows what truth is. Park your mind here, in the truth of God’s word. If you do not, Satan will take it and park it somewhere else. God did not die for good people. He died for us.
John 17:17
17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
Romans 5:7-8
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
What is a sinner? Is it someone who goes out and does the nasty nine, the dirty dozen, or the terrible twelve. What is the sinner? A sinner is an unbeliever.
Romans 14:23
and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
John 16:9
9 The world’s sin is unbelief in me
That is what you were prior to the time you became a believer in the one whom God sent to save us from our sin. A sinner is an unbeliever. Christ died for you and me as we were unbelievers. No one was born into this world as a believer. No baby came out of their mother’s womb saying, “praise Jesus”. You are born lost. You are born dead.
Psalm 51:5
5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
If you are dead, you need life. If you have never come to the place in experience where you recognized the truth that you are spiritually dead, you are never going to turn to God for spiritual life. Until you see your death, why would you want life? That is why the resurrection has no meaning until you understand you are dead. The cross has no meaning until you understand you are a sinner.
The sinner thinks, “Who needs you, God? You did not need to die for me. I am okay. Have you not read the book, ‘I am okay. You are okay?’” I am going to write a book called, “I am not okay. You are not okay. That is okay.” Until you see your condition you are not ready for the provision. If you are not thirsty, you are not interested in a water fountain. Only when you are thirsty are you interested in finding water. Only when you are hungry do you want to find out where the food is. Satan wants to tell you that you are not thirsty and not hungry. Here is some stuff that will fill you up a little bit.
Romans 5:8
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:9
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood,
Folks, if you want to know what the blood is, look at Leviticus 17:11.
Leviticus 17:11
11 For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.
The life of the creature is in the blood. Since we have been justified by what? His life.
Romans 5:9-10
how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Folks, let us look at this passage. Back to what I was talking to about the man in regard to his reading of Calvin and of his reformed theology. As I said to him, this is how Calvin was off. Maybe a dear man, but he was off. People have been copying Calvin being off all these years saying, “God cannot die for all people’s sins, for that would be universal salvation? If salvation is getting sin forgiven, then would that not be universal salvation? “Thank you, God, for dying for my sins”, and that is all you had to do, then would that not be universal salvation, that God died for the sins of all the world? If you think that is what salvation is, then you could not believe Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. For if he died for all, then I would be there with Hitler. But what does scripture say?
Romans 5:10
sup>10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled
When were we enemies? When we were sinners. When did Christ die? While we were still sinners. When were we reconciled? When we were sinners. Through what? The death of Jesus. Then Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, and that is exactly what he did. He took away the sins of the whole world. He took away Hitler’s sins? Jesus took away his sins, your sins and he took away my sins. Is that salvation? No.
Jesus death on a cross is what he had to do to clear the deck to bring salvation. What is salvation according to this passage? Saved by his life. You are reconciled to God through the death of His Son, and that is reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:19
19 God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.
Getting sins forgiven, or taken away, is not salvation. It is a part of salvation. It is what God had to do to clear the deck in order to bring life to the dead. If the bible is true, and if the bible says, we were all born into this world dead spiritually, if that is true, then do you have a problem? If you are a Jew, do you have a problem, if you are dead? If you are a Gentile, do you have a problem, if you are dead? Those are the only two categories God had, so you would have to say the whole world is dead. If you are dead, then you have a problem. You have a problem far greater than sins. You have a consequence you are dealing with. The consequence you are dealing with is death.
Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[a] Christ Jesus our Lord.
Moses cannot give you life. The pope cannot give you life. Martin Luther cannot give you life. I cannot give you life. There was only one person who can give you life. That is the resurrected one, Christ Jesus. That is why God sent him. He did not send him to form a new religion. He sent him to give life to the dead. He looked down upon His creation with compassion. They are dead. If you are dead, you need life. The only kind of life available to us is spiritual life. The only one who can give it to you is Jesus.
John 17:1-3
1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
That is not religion. Religion cannot give you life. How can religion give you life? Jesus came and said, “I am going to be obedient to the commands of God”. So the sinner says, “Fine. Nice goal. Let me try that.” But how is that going to give you life? A person says, “I am going to go to church every Sunday”. Nice. How is that going to give you life? Are you going to come into the church to get life? If you are dead, you need life.
John 11:24-26
24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
The law is stringent. The wages of sin is death. If you stumble at one point, you are guilty of breaking all of it. The law is without bending. It is stringent, is it not? If you have a corpse, try to bend it. It is stiff. It is stringent. It will not bend. That is what you and I are under unless we have been freed from that unbending death and have become the recipients of life in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15:56
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
Romans 8:2
2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Romans 5:10
how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
This is the most important message that anybody can get a hold of because it explains, in this one passage, what salvation is. It is not religion. It is not being a Catholic. I have to laugh about making mother Theresa a saint. I was made a saint when I was 36 and God made me a saint. And he made you a saint, if you are in Christ. That is why you are called saint. That is why Paul did not address people as all those old sinners saved by grace. He called them saints not because they were good but because they are saved.
1 Peter 2:9
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
We have all kinds of religious stuff, with dumb looking hats and robes. All this trying to make oneself look holy. That does not make you holy. People fall for that stuff all over the place. Teaching that is totally contrary to the word of God. Masses of people fall for false teaching. Why? They do not check it out against the word of God. Is Luther the standard of truth? No. Is the pope? No. What about Kuresh? No. Where are you going to have to go to find truth? The bible. The word of God. What are you going to have in you before you can understand what the bible means? The Spirit of God in you.
1 Corinthians 2:9-10
9 However, as it is written:“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[Isaiah 64:4] –
the things God has prepared for those who love him –10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
2 Peter 1:21
21For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Acts 17:11
11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
