God’s Appointment of His Son

Transcript

GR 2201
03/24/2019
God’s Appointment of His Son
Romans 1:2-5
Gil Rugh

We’ve just started a study of the book of Romans in your Bibles, the book of Romans. I didn’t look back how many times we’ve done the book of Romans since I’ve been here, but the last time we started a complete study was about 10 years ago, so time to review Romans. I keep thinking of the quote from Martin Luther that I read to you. This book is so important that every believer ought to know it word for word. I have often thought different times over the years if there came a time when we lost the privilege to have a Bible, perhaps you were imprisoned as some of the saints down through history were, what a blessing it would be to have fixed the book of Romans in your mind. They may be able to take the physical copy of the Bible away but to have the Bible stored up in our hearts and minds.

The book of Romans is important because it lays out in a more orderly, systematic and thorough way, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And there is no more important subject, and that’s where Paul begins in Romans chapter 1 verse 1, where we looked at in our previous study. “Paul, a bondservant,” literally a slave, in our English Bibles we’ve translated the Greek word for slave as bondservant. I don’t know, perhaps that doesn’t mean as much to us. The word slave, which denotes you are under the authority completely of someone else, you belong to them, you are not your own, you’ve been bought with a price. Paul saw himself -- it was a high honor to call himself a slave of Christ Jesus. He was called as an apostle, that’s what he had been set apart for, appointed by God to the role of apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.

What he’s going to do in this introductory section, basically the first 17 verses of Romans, he’s going to introduce himself and then he’s going to give an overview of what the content of the book of Romans will be, basically the subject of the gospel and initially he tells his role with the gospel. He came to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and that account given in Acts 9 on the Damascus road. We know something of that and Paul recounted it a couple of times later in the book of Acts. How God reached out, and took hold of him, the persecutor of the church and brought him to faith in Christ. And then he was called to be an apostle, that was the area that God gifted him to serve, basic foundational gift. The apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church Paul wrote in the book of Acts, but that means the truth that was revealed through them which comprised what we have basically as our New Testament. That’s foundational for the church and Paul’s the key figure there because the full revelation of God’s purpose and plan in the church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ, was revealed to the apostle Paul.

In Ephesians 3, Paul said that was a mystery that was not made known, until God revealed it to and through him, so part of that unfolding revelation of God’s purposes and plans. So he is an apostle, he was set apart for the gospel, and there is a way we talked about in application. We might see all of us in that position, because now that we know the gospel, we become instruments to make it known to share it. But Paul had a particular role that he would carry the gospel beyond the bounds of Judaism primarily. He shared the gospel with Jews on a number of occasions, but his primary calling was to carry the gospel to non-Jews, because God’s purpose and plan in the church as result of judgment on the nation Israel was that the Jews would be set aside under the judgment of God. And God’s salvation work in the world during this period of time does not focus in the nation Israel, it focuses in the church. Then as you’re aware when the church age comes to its conclusion with the Rapture then God will bring to His final completion His program with Israel in that seven years that yet remain in the 70 weeks of Daniel. And that will culminate with the return of Christ to earth to establish the kingdom promised to the nation Israel, the kingdom of which we will be a part.

That’s “set apart for the gospel of God” tells you the truth of the gospel, the gospel has its source in God. The word gospel is good news. Think about it. We have good news from God. God is speaking and He is telling us good news, and that good news as unfolded is I’ve (God) provided a Savior. The news couldn’t be any better. Sometimes even we as believers, certain things become somewhat commonplace for us, and they roll off our tongue, and we don’t really consider. How awesome is it that God should have given us good news? Who are you that God should provide good news to you? Who am I that God should provide His good news? I’ve got a message that is good news for you; Paul said he was set apart to bring that good news to other people and there is no greater privilege than that.

Just jump over to chapter 10 of Romans, where Paul will talk about salvation and particularly in Israel’s place in God’s plan of salvation today. Verse 14, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?” And then that quote from the book of Isaiah chapter 52, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news” . . . there’s our word . . . “good news of good things!” It was a privilege and Paul calls the feet beautiful feet because they’re the feet that were used to carry that messenger who would bring the good news to someone else so they could hear it. And if they don’t hear it they can’t believe it, and if they don’t believe it they can’t be saved, so what a privilege it is. Even the feet are called beautiful because they were the ones that brought the gospel, so that message of good news! That’s what the whole book of Romans is about, no matter what we know, we ought to understand thoroughly and as completely as possible, what is the good news.

The tragedy of the church who has been entrusted with the word of God and the good news is that because we begin to tend to hold it lightly, then it becomes less important, less of a focus. Soon we drift and when the church drifts where are the people going to hear the good news? Who’s going to tell them? Who’s going to invite them to come and hear the good news? So Paul, he was passionate about that, that consumed his life. He was set apart for the gospel of God and now he’s going to elaborate on that. This is the gospel which He promised beforehand and that beforehand carries us back through His prophets in the holy scriptures. Now it’s talking about what we have as our Old Testament, this good news which is a message about Christ, as we’ll see in a moment as he elaborates, was prophesied in the Old Testament. We just read in chapter 10 a quote from Paul that goes back to the prophet Isaiah, hundreds of years before Christ. He talked about the beautiful feet of those who bring good news of good things and the prophets talked about that, so they were the ones who promised beforehand. Before Christ came they did prophesy of His coming. It happens in the holy scriptures. The scriptures are holy because they partake of God’s character. Remember God tells His people, “You shall be holy for I am holy,” and what is connected with God partakes of His character. We have become partakers of the divine nature through faith in Christ, the salvation He provided. We’ve become the children of God so we are holy ones, saints, and God’s word is holy. Why? Because it is His word.

Come over to 2 Timothy chapter 3, you know where we’re going if you’ve been involved in the study of the Word here often. But 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, “All scripture is inspired by God,” is God breathed, it comes out from God. That’s why the gospel is the gospel of God, it comes from Him. The Old Testament prophets, they weren’t just giving their thoughts, their ideas. It was God using them as His mouthpiece, using them to record so “all scripture is ‘God breathed’ and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, for training in righteousness so the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” These scriptures brought the message of salvation to us, and when we believed that then these scriptures become the nourishment. Like newborn babes Peter said, we are to desire, to long for the pure unadulterated milk of God’s word, so that we might grow in our salvation. The new birth is the beginning of a new life. Its the picture like that new baby that’s been born, that’s the beginning of a life. We enter into salvation through faith in Christ, that’s the beginning of a new life. So the scriptures are holy because God is holy, and He is the source of these scriptures. That’s why they are the final word and we can’t lose sight of that. For some people their church is the final authority or their denomination, whatever branch, whatever mold. Their authority comes from man in one way or another. The word of God is the authority. The scriptures are holy. This is just a book but the message of this book, the content of this book, these very words are holy.

Amazing how casual even professing believers can be, how relatively disinterested we can be. Think about it, the almighty, eternal God who created all things who rules over all has spoken. What is more important than we come and hear what He has said? Sometimes even we as believers lose some interest in that. That’s what happened to Israel. I refer to it often because it amazes me. God says you have become weary of Me. What a thing! You know it’s almost sacrilegious to say it but the attitude, God you bore me, I’m tired of listening to You. We would, I would, never say that but we ignore the Word, we become maybe less interested in it. That’s what happened to Israel, they went through the motions but they had lost their heart for the Word. So this is the gospel of God which He promised.

Come back to Romans 1, “beforehand through His prophets,” these are His instruments. The emphasis here on this is Paul is hammering it in because this is foundational. This is the gospel of God. It was promised beforehand when God spoke through His prophets. Men He set apart so that He would breathe His word in and through them in that miraculous way. He’d use their personality, their characteristics that He had prepared them for but the words that they wrote were God’s words, the Spirit of God as older men wrote, as they were moved by the Spirit, as we have seen in the writings of Peter. So the scriptures are holy. That doesn’t mean when the Bible gets old and ragged, it doesn’t mean I would not dispose of it, but I’d want to get a new one. But some of you would miss the old one because you’ve got everything marked and also you get it rebound. That’s great; mine’s getting a little weak. I have about four or five Bibles just this model so when I do have to change everything is still where I have gotten use to it being on the page, so we all have our own way of doing it but we want it to be our word because it’s God’s word. And I never want to lose sight of the fact it is the most precious thing I have.

You say, well, my salvation, my relationship with Christ. Yes, but where do I learn about that? You cannot enter into God’s salvation if you do not hear the gospel. That’s what we read over in chapter 10 of the book of Romans. What, how shall they hear? They can’t call upon someone they haven’t heard about, you have to hear. Now we have it. Read it, take it in, the holy scriptures. What are these scriptures about? This is the third thing he’s going to say. First, he said it was from God, it’s the gospel of God. Second, he said in verse 2, it was promised in the Old Testament scriptures. And now thirdly, it is about His Son. So everything that was written in the Old Testament, it was anticipating and looking to the coming of His Son, and now we build upon the fact He has come.

It’s “concerning His Son . . . His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” And you note this sentence goes down as we have it here through verse 7. One of Paul’s long sentences and some of you are familiar with diagramming and when you diagram Paul’s sentences -- the good thing is you get the connection of everything. But you get these long sentences that you get building one thing on another, but the gospel concerns His Son, God’s Son. That elevates Him to an importance above everyone else. This is the Son, who existed before He became a descendant of David according to the flesh. He was God’s Son. He became a son of David, in the physical realm but He’s eternally God’s Son. John 1, the gospel of John begins with what? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” and then “the Word became flesh, and ‘tabernacled’ among us.” When you get down to verse 14 of John 1, “and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” This is the gospel concerning His Son.

Remember the parable Jesus told about the king who sent various ones back to the city. Lastly, he sent his son and they disrespected him. And what will that king do when they all realize they deserve the worst of punishments? Here we’re dealing with His Son. This is the most important thing a person can know. Every person you come in contact with as a believer, you have the most important thing in time and eternity that they could know, that they could hear. There’s nothing else going on in the world anywhere that in any way compares to the importance of the gospel, this message concerning the Son of God. It concerns His Son, His eternal Son, this emphasis on His being the Son. Down in verse 9 of Romans 1, “For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son.” Come over to chapter 5 verse 10, “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.” That repeated and you come to chapter 8 verse 3, “what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” Down in verse 29 of chapter 8, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.” Verse 32 of chapter 8, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us.” You understand the importance of the gospel, it’s about the Son of God.

Back in Romans 1, “who was born of a descendant of David,” and the way this is set forth indicates He was a Son before He became a descendant of David. It’s God’s Son, who was born of a descendant of David down in the line as we have the genealogies in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. He is a descendant of David according to the flesh, but the amazing thing is He’s God’s Son who became a Son of David, because He had to become a man so He could be the Savior of mankind. That was crucial because the blood of bulls and goats couldn’t take away sin. The penalty for your sin was greater than you could pay without spending eternity in hell. God intervened, so His Son was born of a descendant of the seed of David according to the flesh. This emphasis on being connected to David goes back to the Davidic Covenant that we have looked at in 2 Samuel 7 where God made a covenant with David. And that his son, one of his descendants would ultimately sit on the throne of the kingdom on this earth forever, so that emphasis of the connection to David.

Come back to Isaiah 11. I don’t want to leave out all these references and just mention the fact of them. This is part of the prophecy of the Old Testament where God’s prophets spoke His word. And so in Isaiah chapter 11 verse 1, “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit,” so again picturing here that this Messiah, this coming Son, will be a descendant of David, in the line of David. Then you have “the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon Him,” and so on. And we come to the kingdom in verse 6, “And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat,” so you have the coming of the Son of God, being born as a descendant of David and then He’s ruling and reigning. That’s all in the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7. We’ve been back there recently on a couple of occasions, but you see how the Old Testament puts it together. These are facts but there’s 2,000 years involved here where He’ll come to earth, but He’s returned to heaven because He’s going to come again. And then “the wolf,” down in verse 6, “will dwell with the lamb” and the curse is lifted from the creation, so the animal world is no longer hostile, verse 8, “the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra.” Verse 9, “they will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,” referring to the kingdom of God, which will rule over all the earth. And the Messiah, Jesus Christ will rule and reign, a prophecy He’s a descendant of David.

Come over to Jeremiah, you’re in Isaiah, that’s just the next book, Isaiah, Jeremiah, chapter 23. As you see, the Old Testament prophets anticipating Isaiah 53, that great chapter anticipating the death of Christ, His crucifixion, along with some of the more memorable Psalms on that same subject. But Jeremiah chapter 23 focusing on being a descendant of David. Look at verse 5, “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord our righteousness,’” Jehovah Tsidkenu. That’s yet future but He’ll be a seed, a descendant of David. That will be realized when He is born physically through the line of David, but the fulfillment of that reign is yet to be seen. We don’t see Israel dwelling securely in their land. Christ is not here on earth again ruling and reigning, but that prophecy of the descendant of David.

Come over to chapter 33 of Jeremiah verse 15, verse 14 for a little bit of the context. “‘Behold, days are coming,’” and let me just say Jeremiah is writing in the days of the Babylonian Captivity. The northern kingdom had been carried away, the northern 10 tribes, earlier into captivity, by the Assyrians, but now the southern kingdom, has experienced being carried away. These are dark days and yet the prophet’s talking about days of coming glory. Verse 14, ” ‘Behold days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the good word, which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth; and He shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety; and this is the name by which she will be called: the Lord is our righteousness.’ ”

And some of you have studied the names of the Lord, this being one of them. “For thus says the Lord, ‘David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel’” and it goes on. Verse 20, “ ‘If you can break My covenant for the day, and My covenant for the night, so that day and night might not be at their appointed time, then My covenant may also be broken with David.’ ” We talk about that, God’s established the cycles that go on and we saw in Ecclesiastes, the sun rises. Here it’s put a little differently but the same point, we have day and we have night, and this goes on. Nations come and go. Babylon came on the scene, Babylon’s god is not the ruling power, Assyria came on the scene, they’re gone and so on. But My covenant with David will be fulfilled and realize its fulfillment with ultimately the greater Son of David, even though David himself will have a place in that kingdom as well. Now that gives you just a little bit of flavor.

When you come to the New Testament -- why don’t you come to this genealogy in Matthew? You have a genealogy of Matthew and then you’ll have a genealogy in Luke and they are different. We’ve talked about this and what you have in Matthew is the connection of David to Christ through his son Solomon. You’ll see in verse 6 of Matthew 1, Jesse was the father of David the king. David was the father of Solomon, and Solomon was the father and you come down to verse 16. Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, so there is the physical connection back to David. When you come over to Luke -- you want to come over to Luke chapter 3, you have a genealogy but it is different in significant ways in Luke 3. In Matthew we go back basically to David, going back there because its emphasis is on Jesus is king. When you get to Luke it goes back all the way to Adam because the emphasis of Luke is He’s Son of Man, so a little difference there, but I want you to note, come down to verse 31 as we’re going here. The genealogy came in verse 23 and we’re going to work back from Christ. Matthew we built up to Him, here we’re going to go backwards.

Jesus began His ministry in verse 21. He was about 30 years of age, being as supposed the son of Joseph. Joseph was not His physical father but he was his legal father. He wasn’t fathered by Joseph, because He was fathered by the Holy Spirit who conceived Christ in the womb of Mary, who gave Him His physical connection to David. You come on down and in verse 31, note the last part of that verse, the son of Nathan, the son of David. Now you see what happened there. In Matthew, you had the line connecting Christ to David from Solomon, one of David’s sons. In Luke, you have him connected to David through a different son, Nathan not Solomon, so both genealogies connect Him back to David at that point, but from David out there through different sons.

So you trace the line of Solomon, David, Solomon and Solomon’s lineage and David, Nathan and Nathan’s lineage. Solomon connects us to Joseph who’s the legal father but not the physical father of Christ. Luke connects us to Mary who gave birth to Jesus and that becomes very important, because if you come back to Matthew 1. In Matthew 1 and look at verse 11 and this line coming from verse 6, David through Solomon and down the line of Solomon. You come in verse 11, Josiah became the father of Jeconiah and at the time of the Babylonian Captivity. That creates a problem.

Come back to Jeremiah chapter 22, Jeremiah 22 and we’ll break in, in verse 24, here a prophecy concerning Coniah. This is Jeconiah but like we do with names we shorten them, abbreviate them. Jeconiah is Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim and God’s judgment on him, and you come down to verse 29, “’O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD!’ Thus says the LORD,” and this is a prophecy concerning Jeconiah and his descendants. “Write this man down childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no man of his descendants,” of his seed, “will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.” Now that would be a problem if Jesus was only a physical descendant of Solomon down through Jeconiah because God said there’ll be no seed of Jeconiah that I will bless sitting and ruling over Jerusalem. The solution to that is Mary gives Him His physical connection to David, but Joseph gives Him His legal connection. He is legally connected through the line of Joseph and so He gets the legal right to the throne.

Come back to Romans. It says He’s born a descendant of David. Now He fulfills the prophecy and even the details. You see the hand of God in it, and God’s control in all that goes on. And in the details down to something very important, that judgment pronounced by God in Jeremiah 22. If both of the human parents of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, were both of the line of Solomon through Jeconiah, the curse would keep the Messiah from being king. God would have cancelled Himself out if I can use that kind of terminology, but in His sovereign plan, He has provided. And in the virgin birth, there is something important in a variety of ways, and one, it’s important He not be the physical descendant of Joseph just to fulfill that prophecy, as well as the other reasons.

So when you say he is born of a descendant of the seed of David according to the flesh, His physical descendants, you get his physical connection, you also get His legal connection. He was “declared,” in verse 4, “the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead,” “declared the Son of God.” That word declared, one of the words we get the word horizon from it. Something that is, you know, marked out, appointed here. He was appointed, He was installed, not particularly declared as we would think of it, but God appointed Him Son with power. He “was (appointed) the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.” Now that connects Him to being a physical descendant of David, because He was truly man, so He could truly die. That was crucial, because the penalty for sin is death. So you have the connection, He was born because He was eternally the Son of God. We know in Isaiah 6 Isaiah saw a vision of Him high and exalted, the train of His robe filled the temple. And in John’s gospel chapter 12 tells us that when Isaiah wrote that he was writing a prophecy, he was writing about the Son of God in His pre-incarnate state. So He’s always the Son, but He had to become the physical Son. And we’ve seen Hebrews, He had to become a physical descendant of Abraham, He had to become flesh. He didn’t die for angels because He didn’t become an angel. So all the details here. How awesome the sovereign God has brought everything together!

He was declared, appointed Son of God with power, and now what? Wait, He was always God so He always had power. But what was needed? A divine Savior. What did that take? Someone who would pay our penalty. So now He has come to carry out the provision that God is making for us by His death on the cross. So He was (appointed) Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, He’s installed. When we were in Revelation chapter 5, remember the heavenly scene where the scroll, that seven-sealed scroll is there and there’s no one who could open it, in heaven and on earth? And John weeps because this is a tragedy and they say, “Wait, you don’t need to weep.” Why? The Lion of the tribe of Judah, He has paid the penalty, He has made the sacrifice necessary for redemption for fallen creation. So it goes back to what God provided.

God would always be God but when we get to Romans chapter 3, he’ll make the point. God must be the just and the justifier, so He couldn’t sacrifice His justice, His righteousness, and just declare us all forgiven and let’s move on because justice required that the penalty for sin be paid. I mean, that’s what all these sacrifices were leading up to. So He “was (appointed) the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.” Why? Because the resurrection is the capstone to the finished work of redemption, He’s raised from the dead because of our justification. That is the final piece that is necessary to the truth of the gospel. As Paul wrote in Romans, if Christ is still in the grave there’s no salvation, He’s just another man crucified. But the resurrection is necessary to complete that and the Old Testament prophets declared that. Peter preached that in his first sermon on the day of Pentecost, the body of David still in the tomb of David, but Christ is not in the tomb. He’s the Savior.

Look at a couple of references in Acts. I just mentioned Acts 2, come there, this being appointed Son of God with power. Now there is One who is qualified to bring redemption (and that’s why we have hope in the book of Revelation) being declared in heaven. The kingdom will come, the redeemed will live on a redeemed earth in the presence of God for eternity, because the Son was crucified. Acts chapter 2, look at verse 31, Peter’s preaching, I just referred to this. The context is verse 29, “Brethren, I may confidently say regarding the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet, and knew god had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his seed on his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was neither to be abandoned to hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay.”

That anticipation. “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit.” Which has been sent as He told His disciples on the last night in John chapters 14 to 16, He would send the Spirit. Here He is and it wasn’t to David, verse 34, “it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says: the Lord said to my lord.” This wasn’t David. David says, “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool . . . , so let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ -- this Jesus whom you crucified.” So you see, He’s appointed Son of God with power, the power and authority now to bring salvation to the lost.

Now, obviously, Old Testament saints like Abraham were saved, but it was because in the eternal plan of God the Son of God would bring the redemption, so they were saved on the basis of what God would provide. I don’t want to say they were saved on credit, but in anticipation, they were saved by grace through faith, but if Christ had never come, then Abraham would have never have been saved nor would any of us be saved. So you see that connection to the resurrection from the dead. Come over to chapter 13 of Acts verse 32, “we preach to you . . .” What? “The good news of the promise made to the fathers.” Sounds like the beginning of Romans, doesn’t it? Because this is what consumes Paul wherever he is. “That God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you.’ And as for the fact that He raised Him from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ . . . and in another Psalm, “I will not allow your holy one to undergo decay.’ “

David died, was buried, his body has decayed. Verse 37, “but He whom God raised did not undergo decay. Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him, everyone who believes is freed from all things, . . . you couldn’t be freed by the Mosaic Law. So you see, this is so crucial. So He’s appointed Son of God with power, because it took His work on the cross culminating with His resurrection for there to be a redemption that could be offered. So the power of forgiveness of sins is rooted in that work of Christ, so even sins forgiven prior to the cross were on the basis of what Christ would do. So God could justly forgive those who were offering an animal sacrifice believing that God would accept them because they believed what He promised, but it would take that final installation, appointment. The work is done, sit down at the right hand. And we’ve talked about that, no seats in the inner courts in the temple compound for the priests because they were never done, it was one sacrifice after another sacrifice after another. Every year you have to go through that sacrifice because those sacrifices could never take away sin. They could just remind you of the need and so on. So He was appointed, He was installed.

You’re in chapter 13, back up to chapter 10 of Acts since you’re so close. Verse 42, Peter’s preaching the gospel to the Gentiles and he’s told them Christ was put to death, being hung on a cross, verse 39. God raised Him on the third day, we’re witnesses of that. Verse 42, “He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify this is the One that God has appointed as Judge of the living and the dead.” And all the prophets anticipating this event. “Everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” It just comes back to this. It seems so simple but there’s a constant move away, the church is always inundated with new ideas. We live in a different culture, we live in a different day, we need to restructure what we are doing. No, that’s what the gospel’s about. There’s only one power of God for salvation, and that’s the gospel.

It’s a trick of the devil to think we can come up with better ideas, better ways. It doesn’t matter the particular setting, whether it’s in an air-conditioned building, whether it’s in an open air, whether it’s in your living room. What has to always be there is the clarity of the gospel, of God concerning Jesus Christ. If that’s not clear, the gospel that’s going to be unfolded in detail that Christ was appointed, installed with power -- now we can understand how there can be salvation, how there can be redemption, how lost hell deserving sinners can be saved. We’re familiar with Philippians 2, Christ humbled Himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

It’s all tied to the work of redemption. And one of you shared with me many years ago, you attended a church in another state. When you went up and said you didn’t hear the gospel. The answer given was our board has decided that it’s probably not the best practice to present the gospel on Sunday mornings when we have visitors. When else would you want to present it? You scratch your head. Am I missing something? Aren’t you even embarrassed to say that? You ought to get on your knees and repent. This is what we preach, that’s what you will hear, that’s what is so needed. There are other passages but come back to Romans chapter 1, Romans chapter 1.

He “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” And there’s some discussion on what are we referring to as the Spirit of holiness. In the Greek text, they don’t capitalize like we do, so you say should Spirit be capitalized here? So you have in your margin, along with verse 4, or spirit with a small (s). If you’re reading the Greek text they don’t capitalize the name of God or anything like that. And you can have the whole Greek text written in capital letters or in the small letters but you don’t get that unless you get a modern version where they might have updated things, but that’s not the way it was so you have to decide in the context. Some would take it verse 3 says according to the flesh, a descendant of David according to the flesh was raised from the dead according to the spirit and some say that would be his own spirit. He was the perfect sacrifice.

I think probably referring to the Holy Spirit here bringing about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. His earthly life, His ministry in the flesh, He voluntarily set aside the independent use of His attributes, and through the power of the Spirit He is raised from the dead, the Spirit of holiness. Again, the holy scriptures were given by the Spirit, who is the Holy Spirit and here it’s the Spirit of holiness. Not the normal way to refer to the Holy Spirit but here the Spirit of holiness. He’s Jesus Christ our Lord, He’s alive, He’s seated at the right hand of the Father. It’s through this, “through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ; to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

So it’s through Christ. So you see we’ve come back around. Paul started out with telling you about himself. Verse 1, Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus, a called apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. Then he elaborates on that gospel, the gospel which He promised beforehand in the holy scriptures. It concerns His Son, and His Son was appointed Son of God with power and now having accomplished the salvation that could be brought to sinful human beings. Jesus Christ our Lord, and now we’re back to where in verse 1 he’s a bondservant, a slave of Christ. He’s a called apostle set apart for the gospel and it’s through Jesus Christ our Lord. He’s the One through whom we have received grace and apostleship, so I didn’t appoint myself to be an apostle, so you get the compactness here of what’s going to be unfolded, the wonder of our need and then the provision and so on that all make up the gospel.

We have received grace, the grace that brought him salvation and with that the grace of apostleship, because when God set him apart for Himself He set him apart for a specific ministry as well and we’ve talked about it with the gifts of the Spirit. That when you place your faith in Christ, you are forgiven, you are also indwelt by the Spirit who by His presence brings you a gift, an enablement so you can function as the part of the body that God has set you apart for. It’s all part of God’s plan. So we aren’t creating a gift, we aren’t deciding what we would want to be. Sometimes in our thinking we’re praying about it and there’s the human part of the process. But in it all is the hand of God and because it’s the Spirit who provides that enablement as Paul develops in some detail in 1 Corinthians 12 in particular. We receive grace and apostleship. What was it to do? To bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake. What is Paul? He is the apostle to the Gentiles, that’s his uniqueness. He’s not just an apostle, Peter was an apostle, and Paul refers to this, that there was a recognition that Peter’s apostleship directed him to the Jews. Paul says my apostleship under the direction of God directed me to the Gentiles. God not only gifts the person in His grace, but He appoints how and where the gift will be used. (This is part of what we’re talking about that will be the background for Ecclesiastes in days before they even had the completed revelation.) But this was still true, the sovereign God working in the details. So we were to bring about obedience of faith.

The obedience of faith. And what are we talking about? Your first act of obedience. Come over to 1 John chapter 3 and highlight this. In 1 John 3 verse 23, “This is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He commanded.” Now you note here the command includes our initial faith. He commands that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, so our first act of obedience is placing our faith in Christ. And that’s an act of God’s grace in so moving us, but that is the beginning of a life of faith, which is the beginning of a life of obedience.

So you cannot disassociate faith and obedience anywhere along the way although they are not the same thing. Faith is reliance upon God and a trusting in the promises He has given in the person and work of Christ, but He commands us to believe. So anyone who hasn’t placed their faith in Jesus Christ and the work that He accomplished is living a life of rebellion as sinners do consistently as the scripture makes clear. But it’s not like, well, I trusted Christ now I go on. True saving faith is an act of obedience, and it begins a life of faith. I’ll talk more about this as we move on in Romans. Even in chapter 1 we go from faith to faith, obedience is inseparably connected, it’s not an addition, it’s part and parcel. He is Lord, we are not.

We’ve had this debate over Lordship and all of that over the years and it still comes up in theological journals and books. Even there’s a German Greek dictionary, Kittles Theological Dictionary. It’s like the Oxford Dictionary, it’s like 10 volumes of more than you ever want to know about every Greek word, but on the word Lord, it’s a title for God. Because how could you talk about God and not be talking about the requirement to be obedient to that One who is God? You think you can talk about God and honoring Him and recognizing Him but refusing to obey? You don’t really know God, you don’t really recognize who He is. So you have obedience and faith going together and you have it right here in 1 John 3:23. His commandment is that we believe in the name of His Son and love one another. That’s a follow through, but it’s like we have one commandment. Because what? Your obedience in placing your faith in Jesus Christ begins a life of obedience. Now you’re to love the other children who have placed their faith in Christ, so it’s the beginning of a life of faith and a life of obedience, and this will be developed out in detail through the book of Romans.

Part of our problem in our evangelical churches is we don’t have a good grasp of the gospel. We think we do because we can say, “I know the gospel, Christ Jesus died for our sins according to scripture, He was buried, He was raised on the third day He was seen by witnesses, there’s the gospel, I know it.” The Spirit of God directed Paul to write extensively in detail, because the gospel has to be fleshed out. You want to know what obedience is. Theological professors, they’ve lost their theological mind, you can place your faith in Christ but you don’t have to obey Him, hopefully sometime you will decide to do that. Just what kind of jumble theology is that? We have the obedience of faith. Was He talking about the Christian life after salvation or is He talking about the beginning of the Christian life? Yes. Because we go from faith to faith, because He commands us to believe and obey. The command to believe includes that ongoing thing. Now that you’ve obeyed Me by believing, you can decide later on whether you want to obey Me. The decisions made, your life is not your own. You were bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body. Your life belongs to Me, that’s why the word slave is used, it’s not my life anymore, it’s His, and He is in charge. So the obedience of faith and we’ll leave it there and pick up there next time.

Let’s have a word of prayer. Thank you Lord for the riches of Your word. Lord, how rich it is! We need to take it in, to mull it over, to think on it, meditate on it, dwell on it. Lord, examine our lives in the light of it, so that we might be a people who not only talk the gospel but live this gospel. That we are lights in the darkness of this hopelessly lost world, but we come with a message of hope. There is a Savior and we give You praise for the One who loved us and died for us. Your love in providing such salvation. Pray for the week before us, the opportunities we will have, the places You will take us, the situations that You’ll bring us into. Lord, may in it all we be faithful and may we be instruments used greatly of You. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.