Romans 6:1-14 - Sin, grace and baptism

If sin is fun and grace is free then why stop sinning?  Paul says that's a ridiculous thing to ask for anyone who really knows Jesus...

Romans 6:1-14

Paul is saying that a Christian is someone who has died.  The death of Jesus now also represents the death of their old sinful self with all its selfish priorities and desires.  The Christian is someone who realises the seriousness of sin and sees that it leads to death.  They also enjoy the incredible forgiveness and freedom that God's grace through Jesus brings.  For someone like this, who realises the seriousness of sin and experiences the joy of grace, the idea of wanting to continue in sin is absolutely ridiculous.

For the Christian, they also have the Holy Spirit - God himself living in them and this means they have the power to make the right decisions and to live for Jesus.  Before, they were slaves to sin and helpless to stop but now, they have God himself and all his power at work in them to change them day-by-day to be more like Jesus (v6-7).

Paul describes some of the symbolism that's involved in believer's baptism.  When Christians go under the water and come up again, they're identifying themselves with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.  The water is just water but it's packed with meaning for the person being baptised.  It's a sign that they have crucified their old selves (Galatians 5:24) and it's a sign that just as Jesus came back to life, they too live a new life - not one centered on themselves anymore but on Jesus instead.  Living 'with him' (v8) is something that starts now as well as continuing forever in heaven.

Paul's advice for Christians is to count themselves dead to sin, dead to its leadership and mastery and instead to live full lives for Jesus, led by by him.  The forgiveness and freedom that Jesus brings to Christians is not what's in question here, only the extent to which Christians make the most of that freedom to live large lives for Jesus rather than small selfish lives for themselves.

Questions...
1. Are you dead to sin and alive to Jesus yet?  If not, what do you make of the idea here that you're a 'slave' to sin?  How long could you go without thinking, saying or doing something selfish?
2. If you are dead to sin and alive to Jesus, have you been baptised?  If not - what are you waiting for?  If so, how is your life and your choices showing people what Jesus has done for you (like your baptism did)?

Romans blog

Romans 5:12-21 - Two men

Paul has been explaining how the death of Jesus has made people right with God.  This leads him to reflect back to how the problem of sin got started and to draw some links between what Adam did and what Jesus has done...

Romans 5:12-21

Christians differ as to how to properly understand the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis.  Some say it's literally true and that Adam and Eve are our first parents.  Others say it's figuratively true and Adam and Eve represent the human race.  Either way, the main points of Genesis are clear and what Paul says here about Adam's story still stands, whether it's literally true or figuratively true.

Paul talks about two men.

The first man is Adam.  In Genesis we read that God made people good and gave them freedom to choose to love him back in obedience or to go their own way and rebel.  They went against God and this brought consequences for all humankind from that point on: guilt and shame, work became toil, pain, struggle and ultimately death and separation from God (Genesis 3).  Humankind was (and still is) in rebellion against God, sinning by nature and by choice.

The second man is Jesus.  Paul says the implications of the gift of Jesus' death on the cross are far greater than the consequences of Adam. In other words - God's solution for sin is plenty big enough to deal with the problem of sin.  The first man brought sin and death but the second man brings grace and life.  The first man brought judgment and condemnation but the second man brings justification and righteousness.  The single act of the first man's rebellion against God that started all this mess is undone by the single act of the second man's obedience to God on the cross.

Paul reminds us that the purpose of the law given to the Israelites through Moses was to show sin up more so we could know just how bad we are and how far we've fallen from God's standards.  But it also goes to show just how gracious God is when he came to die in our place for our sin so we could be brought back from death to life.

Questions...
1. What are the main points of Genesis chapters 1-3, whether you take it literally or not?
2. How good is God?  How bad are we?  How does the law help us?
3. Are you following the first man or the second?  What does Paul say the consequences are for you?

Romans blog

2 together

2 together is a relationship mentoring resource I wrote for couples who don't want to wait for a marriage prep course to teach them everything they should know already! The course includes Bible passages so you can consider what God says but you don't have to be a Christian to benefit from it.

The 10 chapters cover...
Relationship with God
Hopes and expectations
Love and its languages
Agreeing helpful boundaries
Time for friendship
Honesty and trust
Forgiveness and resolving conflict
Families and their impact
Friendships and community
Moving on

Read and fill out a chapter individually, meet together to talk about your answers and then each meet with a mentor to talk about how it's going. 2 together will help you build in the foundations you need to make a strong relationship that lasts.

You can ask me for a free copy of the pdf and print your own or if you want to order the book, it'll cost you £5.19 (including postage) and is available here.

Romans 5:1-11 - Three big words

Having explained the bad news about sin and the good news about Jesus and having dealt with some of the religious hang ups some people might have had about all this, Paul continues to describe just how good the good news of Jesus really is for those who trust him...

Romans 5:1-11

At this point, it's worth understanding three big words that will help us navigate our way through a lot of what Paul says in the New Testament...

1. 'Justification' means Christians have been saved from the punishment of sin.  This is a one-time event that happens the moment a person starts trusting and following Jesus.

2. 'Sanctification' means Christians are being saved from the practice of sin.  This is a lifelong process that starts when a person trusts and follows Jesus.

3. 'Glorification' means Christians will be saved from the presence of sin.  This happens at the moment a person who trusts and follows Jesus dies in this world and goes to be with Jesus forever in heaven.

So when Paul talks about being justified through faith, he means that everyone who has put their faith in Jesus has been saved from the punishment of sin.  It's done.  We ask for forgiveness and because of Jesus, God says yes.  It's as simple and as amazing as that!  We don't have anything to boast about except for the incredible love and grace and forgiveness of God through Jesus.

This means that even though Christians still suffer the same things others face in this world, they have a hope that others don't.  Christians know they have forgiveness and peace with God that starts now and outlasts this world and everything it can do to them.  This means Christians can face the worst this world can throw at them and still have peace.  They're not left with nothing.  Not only that but Paul says they can even benefit from suffering because they develop perseverance and character through it.  This doesn't mean suffering is good (sin is still sin) but it means that God is an expert at bringing good out of evil and he does this when Christians suffer.  Suffering is still bad and sanctification is tough but God is still good and Christians still have the same certain hope they did when they first trusted Jesus.  They even have God himself living in them by his Holy Spirit so they go through nothing alone.

Very rarely will someone choose to die for others and even though it sometimes happens, Paul says Jesus' death for us is completely unique.  Jesus didn't die for us because we are good but because we are bad and he is so good that he wants to save us anyway.  Jesus on the cross is God's ultimate sign of his love for us.  Forgiveness is a free gift for us but it cost God everything.

Anyone who trusts and follows Jesus is justified - saved from the punishment for sin, made right with God.  This means God's anger and judgement on their sin goes on Jesus instead of them so they go free.  God has nothing but love for the person whose sin is not on them any more.  They were God's enemies but through faith in Jesus they are now friends with God.

Paul then does a bit of logic that goes like this... If God loved us so much when we were still his enemies that he died for us in our place, then those who have put their faith in him can absolutely expect only the very best in the end now that they are his friends!  To use our three big words... Paul's saying that for Christians, justification is theirs and though sanctification is gruelling, glorification is certain!

Romans blog

Romans 4 - Believing God

So far Paul's explained the bad news that no-one's good enough for God and the good news that people can be made right with God only by putting their faith in Jesus.  But he knows that his Jewish readers are going to find this hard to accept because they think they're sorted already and the same is true of many people today...  "How dare you say I'm not good enough and I have to be a Christian!"  It's an understandable objection and many of Paul's Jewish readers would have also added, "But we're from Abraham's family and he didn't have faith in Jesus so why can't we just carry on as Jews?"  In the same way, many people today think they're just fine as they are.  In this chapter, Paul explains that Abraham was made right with God in same way that people are made right with God today - by believing him!

Romans 4

So how were people made right with God before Jesus came along?  Abraham is a hero to the Jews but he didn't even know Jesus.  If Abraham was right with God, it must have been because he was really really good!  Paul says no.  Abraham was no better than the rest of us compared to God (and anyone who reads Genesis 12 onwards will see just how flawed and normal he really was).  Not even Abraham could say he was good enough for God or that God owed him anything.

Paul says that Abraham was made right with God as a free gift of God's grace.  As he's explained already, it's not about self-righteousness that relies on our works but 'gift-righteousness' that relies on God's work for us.  The faith that Abraham needed in order to believe God, is the same kind of faith people need today to believe God.  It's just that God has said and done a lot more since Abraham, most importantly through Jesus himself...

Hebrews 1:1-2 says... In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

So Paul's not flogging the Jews a snazzy new heretical religious fad that will come and go.  It's the same faith and it's the same God.  It was never about good works that earn God's favour.  Paul says being right with God is a 'blessing', which means it's a gracious gift and not something that anyone can ever earn, not even the Jewish hero Abraham.

Many Jews had missed the point.  Some would have argued that it was all about circumcision but Paul says that's just a sign that Abraham had been blessed by God already.  It was a sign that Abraham belonged to God because of God's grace, not because of anything Abraham did.  To the Jews that thought they were God's just because of their heritage or religious practices, Paul says, 'You're wrong!'  Belonging to God and being made right with him (justification) has always been and will always be about believing what he says and critically, now that Jesus has come, this includes trusting and following him.

How many people today miss the point and think that what really matters to God is head coverings or facing east or circumcision or beards or sideburns or kneeling?  How many Christians miss the point and think that God loves them because they pray or go to church or read the Bible or sing worship songs?  Some of these things may be helpful but none of these things can make us right with God.  Only God can do that and he's done it for everyone who trusts and follows Jesus who died in our place for our sin and came back to life.  It's about believing God and it always has been.  This is what faith is all about.

Romans blog

Romans 3:21-31 - Made right through faith!

Ok, so I know the book of Romans has been heavy stuff so far and perhaps a bit of a slog for some but it's about to get really good!  Paul has been explaining the human problem thoroughly so that he can also explain the good news even more thoroughly and he packs a lot into a few sentences!  He's been explaining how no-one can be good enough for God by simply obeying God's law because everyone fails and needs forgiveness and rescue.  The good news is, God wants to forgive and rescue people through Jesus...

Romans 3:21-31

'But now', Paul says.  He's changing tack.  The bad news is already explained and now he's getting to the good bit!  Jesus!  He explains that God's righteousness (how good God is) has been revealed to humans not only through the Old Testament law that people were trying (and failing) to keep but also now through Jesus and he says the law was pointing to Jesus all along.

If people want to have the righteousness of God and be good enough for God, trying to keep God's commands should only go to show that we can't have it that way.  Paul says the only way people can be good enough for God and have this righteousness is by receiving it as a gift by having faith in Jesus.  Faith in Jesus means a lot of things that Paul will explain in this letter but for now he simply says it's about believing Jesus.

Paul reminds us that we're all in the same boat when it comes to being good enough for God.  We're not!  No matter how far we fall short, the point is we all fall short of God's goodness because we have all deliberately made selfish choices in our thoughts, words and actions.  But the good news here is that it's people like this that Jesus wants to freely and graciously forgive and rescue and give his righteousness to so they're good enough for him.  People like us!  Not self-righteousness that relies on our work but gift-righteousness that relies on Jesus' work. 

'Redemption' is a powerful word that means 'buying back' and that's what Jesus was doing on the cross.  Paul says Jesus was a 'sacrifice of atonement' and this means Jesus was our substitute, dying in our place for our sin.  He was taking the punishment for the sin of the world on himself.  I always think of Jim Carrey in The Mask where he swallows the bomb that's about to kill the girl and it goes off inside him but he just takes it and burps fire afterwards!  Of course, what Jesus did is a million times more profound than that but I like the image!  Jesus takes it for us because he can and because he loves us and wants to rescue us!

The 'shedding of blood' is a big deal too.  Paul says this is part of it.  Hebrews 9:22 says 'In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.'  The Jews and anyone who knew the Old Testament law would have known that God says sin is serious and requires death as a penalty.  This is what the blood is about.  It's a sign of death for sin.  Paul says Jesus' blood is a sign for us that he died for us and faith in Jesus means trusting that his death paid the price for our sin so we could have forgiveness from God.

Paul says Jesus' death also shows God's justice because if sin is serious and deserves death as a penalty then God had been gracious for ages!  Loads of people over the years had been allowed to live selfishly and not suffer justice immediately.  God had been graciously delaying punishment so that he could show people himself and his plan to forgive them and make them right again.  Paul is saying that when Jesus died, he really was dying for the unpunished sin of everyone that had lived so far and also for everyone who would live afterwards.  He took all of it so that anyone who puts their faith in Jesus (by believing him and trusting in his death) could have forgiveness and be made good enough for God by the righteousness of Jesus.  God is absolutely just and his justice fell on Jesus so that we might be justified (made right) with him by faith in Jesus.  This was God's plan all along!

Paul then mentions the law again because he knows his Jewish readers care about it and might think he's rubbishing it by saying Jesus can make us right with God and the law can't.  He's not saying the law's rubbish.  He's saying it's important because its purpose was to highlight people's sin and failure and to point them to Jesus who would die for sin.  He also explains that God loves everyone, not just the Jews.  Only the Jews got the law and it was a partial picture of God's bigger plan but Jesus died for everyone so that people from all nations and cultural backgrounds could bring their sin to Jesus to be forgiven and be made right with God.  This is what the law (and everything in the Old Testament) was pointing to.  It's all about Jesus.

Some HUGE ideas in this passage but maybe some of these simple questions will help us think about what our response ought to be...

• What do you think about Jesus?  What is your opinion based on?
• Have you put your faith in Jesus (believing him and trusting in his death for you)? If not, what do you need to find out about Jesus so you can be sure about him?
• Are you already sure about Jesus and trusting and following him?  If so, do something today to celebrate God's grace and forgiveness and do something to help someone who doesn't know it yet!

Romans blog