Tag Archives: Romans 8-10

November 25, 2023 Bible Study — If God Justifies Us, Who Can Condemn Us?

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 8-10.

Today’s passage contains a lot of things to which we should give careful thought.  It also contains a thread of thought which I want to follow.  Paul continues his thoughts about what it means to saved by faith in Christ.  He writes that those who have faith in Christ have been set free from the law of sin and death by the Spirit.  Some might interpret this to mean that we can act in anyway which we choose because the Law which specifies how we should act has been nullified.  However, Paul says that those who interpret what he said in that way are still living according to the flesh.  He writes that now that we have been saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ we should no longer live according to the flesh but instead live according to the Spirit.

Which brings us back once more to questioning if we are truly saved when we sin again after having accepted Christ as our Savior.  Once again, Paul addresses this by telling us that we struggle in our weakness, but that the Spirit will help us.  After telling us that we should live according to the Spirit and be dead to the flesh, he reminds us that this is what our faith is about.  Our faith gives us hope that the Spirit will transform us into beings who live according to the Spirit.  Then he reminds us that hope is about what we look forward to, not what we already have.  So, we strive to be brought into the freedom and glory of God, living according to His Spirit.

Paul goes on to quote Joel who said that everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved.  From there Paul goes on to make some points which should influence the way we practice “Church” today.

  • People can only call on the Lord if they believe in Him
  • People can only believe in the Lord if they have hear about Him
  • People will only hear about the Lord if someone tells them about Him
  • People will only tell others about the Lord if someone sends them to do so

So, each and every congregation of those who worship Jesus Christ should be sending people out to tell others about Him.  Church is not about getting our spiritual needs met.  It is about preparing ourselves or someone else to preach the good news about Jesus Christ to those who have not yet heard it.

There are many other things which Paul wrote in this passage that each of us should hear, but that is all I am going to write on today.

 

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

November 25, 2022 Bible Study — Nothing Can Separate Us From The Love Of God

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 8-10.

Paul finishes his exposition on salvation by grace through faith in today’s before moving on to some of the implications it has for us.  First, Paul tells us that if we have the Spirit of God living in us we will live according to the spirit (or possibly the Spirit) not according to the flesh.  So, we need to set our minds on what the Spirit desires and turn our minds from what the flesh desires.  Paul also tells us that if we do not have the Spirit of Christ we do not belong to Christ.  One could easily misinterpret what Paul is writing here to think that since we need to live according to the spirit rather than the flesh that the physical world is irredeemably evil.  But Paul recognizes that and points out that God raised Christ from the dead as an example that He will give life to our mortal bodies.  That is, just as Christ’s physical body was raised from the dead, so too our bodies will be raised from the dead (should we die before the day of transformation arrives).

From there Paul goes on to point out that as we live in these untransformed bodies we suffer in various ways, perhaps just the pain of our bodies getting older, but perhaps pain and suffering inflicted on us because we profess faith in Christ.  However, we have the hope of God transforming our bodies, just as He did Jesus’ body.  In the meantime, God’s Spirit will help us in our weakness.  While we do not all for which we should pray, the Spirit does and it will intercede for us according to the will of God.  Further Paul tells us that God works in all things for the good of those who love Him.  Knowing this, why should we fear anything?  If God is defending us, is working for our good, who can bring harm to us?  Perhaps you fear being separated from God, but Jesus said that no one can snatch us out of His hand and here Paul tells us that nothing can separate us from Him.  In fact, one of my favorite declarations of faith is here:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I too share that conviction.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

November 25, 2021 Bible Study — Any Present Sufferings Cannot Compare To The Glory Which God Will Give To The Faithful

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 8-10.

Paul expands on his theme about serving righteousness rather than sin in today’s passage.  He tells us that if we live according to our physical desires, we will remain in sin and be dead to the Spirit.  But, if we live according to the desires of God’s Spirit, we will die to our physical desires and experience true life.  Further, as we teach ourselves to live by the Spirit, we will lose all fear because we will feel God within us.  Paul even addresses those of us who struggle knowing what we should pray.  He tells us that as we work to do what is righteous, the Spirit Himself will intercede for us.  Paul points out that any suffering we experience for doing God’s will binds us closer to Christ and reminds us that He died for us.  If God has given His own Son to die for us, how much more will He give us going forward?  As I think about what Paul writes I realize that there is nothing to fear.  Any suffering which I may experience in serving Christ will be temporary, but the joy which will follow will last forever. So, I will seek to embrace suffering just as Paul did.  Remember how God sent prophets to warn Paul what would happen when he returned to Jerusalem that final time?  Yet Paul still went to Jerusalem.  He did so because he embraced suffering in order to server Christ.  There is joy from following Paul’s example.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

November 25, 2020 Bible Study How Can I Know That God’s Promises Apply To Me?

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Romans 8-10

I often quote from verse 31 in chapter 8 to give hope and confidence to my fellow believers: “If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” Recently, someone responded, “Yes, but that is a big if.”  So, in order to address that “If” I am going to start at the end of today’s passage and work back, because there are many promises in today’s passage which rely on us knowing that God is for us.

In chapter 10, Paul tells us, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ”  This really sums up the two things which we must do, we must accept that Jesus is our Lord and we must openly declare that this is the case.  Which answers the question raised by the “If”.  How can we know that God is on our side? By openly declaring that Jesus is Lord and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead.  If we do that then we are on God’s side which means that God is for us.

From there we can go back to the beginning of this passage and see what more is needed with confidence that such is attainable.  Back at the beginning Paul told us that we must not allow our sinful natures to control our minds because doing so leads to death.  That is easier said than done, but Paul provides us with the answer to that as well.  We must instead allow the Spirit of God which lives within us to control our minds instead of our sinful nature.  In fact, if we have the Spirit of God living within us, we will be controlled by the Spirit.  And the Spirit of God lives within us if we do what I referenced in the previous paragraph.  Actually, Paul addresses one of the arguments made by our society to justify sin, “I have these inborn desires that I have to carry out.”  Paul tells us that, no, we do not have to carry out those sinful inborn desires.  We have no obligation  to carry out the urges which our sinful nature pushes us towards.  Paul further tells us that, while we can willingly walk away from the benefits of serving God, nothing can force us away from God’s love.  Even our walking away from God will not separate us from God’s love, even though He will not force us to experience the joy which serving Him will provide us.

 

So, we can have confidence that God stands with us.  Part of that confidence is the knowledge that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him.  This does not mean that we can choose how things will work out.  Perhaps we have been chosen by God to experience suffering similar to that which Christ experienced.  We will find that if we allow the Spirit to control our minds that the joy we experience will overcome, and outweigh, any suffering which might come our way from following God’s will.  More importantly, who are we to demand an explanation from God as to why He made us the way that we are.  This applies not just to the issue of suffering, but to many of the social issues which we see around us today.  My heart breaks for those who have become convinced that God got it wrong when He made them as they are; those who seek to change the way which God has made them.

November 25, 2019 Bible Study — Accepting God’s Love and Allowing It To Transform Me

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Romans 8-10

Some of what Paul writes in today’s passage is relatively easy to understand and some of it is extremely difficult to understand.  We easily understand that if we allow ourselves to think about sinful things we will find ourselves doing those things, while if we allow the Holy Spirit to control our thoughts and think about godly things we will do godly things.  Following up on that is the idea that if we allow the Holy Spirit to do so, He will help us to do God’s will. (The part about helping us pray syncs right up with my comments I made the other day about needing to pray more).  We can even easily understand that nothing, no power, thing, or being, can make it so that God does not love us.  We will experience God’s love whether we wish to or not.  For those of us who desire the experience of God’s love there can be no greater comfort than to realize that God is looking out for our best interests.

Which brings us to the things which are more difficult to understand.  Elsewhere Paul speaks about the need to choose to do God’s will.  Even at the beginning of this passage he writes that we must not allow our sinful nature to control us.  Yet he also writes that we can neither choose nor work to receive God’s mercy; that God chooses to whom He will show mercy and to whom He will not.  So, what does this mean?  There may be more to it than this, but at the very least, it means that I cannot consider myself better than any other person.  Being a follower of Christ does not make me better than someone who is not, not even the vilest sinner I can imagine.  I am not a better person than Adolf Hitler was, than Josef Stalin was, than the murdering rapist just caught by the police.  I have not done those evil, terrible things because of God’s grace and mercy, not because I am somehow better than those people.  Yet, to fully experience the joy which God has in mind for me I must choose to embrace His love and allow it to transform me.

November 25, 2018 Bible Study — Why Our Congregations Are Dying

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Romans 8-10.

    Today’s passage continues a theme which Paul began writing on in yesterday’s passage. I did not touch on it yesterday because the thoughts did not come together. Today Paul talks about how we no longer need to follow our sinful nature because of what God has done for us. We are no longer enslaved to our sinful nature but are free to allow the Holy Spirit to control our lives. If we do the things that please the Holy Spirit, we are controlled by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, if we do the things which please our sinful nature we will be controlled by our sinful nature. This entire passage often seems either plainly self-evident or complexly confusing. However, having read it year after year as part of writing this blog I have come to realize that Paul is talking about something I discovered some time back, and still fail to fully implement in my life. If we do the things which we know that we should be doing we will not have time to sin. The more we do the things which God desires us to do, the less opportunity we will have to succumb to temptation. The Holy Spirit will direct us in what we should do. If we follow its directions we will not yield to temptation. Yet, this is not what saves us. We should allow the Holy Spirit to guide us because we are saved, not think that we will be saved because we do as the Holy Spirit directs.

    In chapter 10 Paul gives the best summation of the Gospel message

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

That is from verse nine and is often misinterpreted as cheap grace. In verse ten Paul explains that believing in our heart makes us right with God, and as the Book of James explains, if we believe in our hearts our behavior will change. Further, Paul explains that the open acknowledgement that Jesus is the source of our salvation, not any action of our own, saves us. From there Paul goes on to remind us of the Scripture which says that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Which leads him to give the most succinct explanation of our purpose as Christians and the purpose of the Church.

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?

When I was growing up, I perceived that just about everyone I knew had heard the Gospel message at one point or another. I know now that it was fewer than I had realized, but most people had still been exposed to that message. Today, most people I encounter have little familiarity with the Gospel. Of course our society is drifting ever further from god, because so few of the people in it have ever actually heard about Him. And our Churches are, all too often, failing to send anyone to tell them. Is your congregation dying? If so, when was the last time someone from it went out and preached the Gospel to people who were not already familiar enough with Christ to seek out the Church?

November 25, 2017 Bible Study — Nothing Can Separate Us From The Love Of God

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Romans 8-10.

    Paul tells us that we have a choice. We can choose to be controlled by our sinful nature, or by the Holy Spirit. If we choose to be controlled by our sinful nature we can never please God and we will die. On the other hand, if we choose to allow the Holy Spirit to control us, He will help us to overcome our sinful nature and raise us from the dead just as He did Jesus Christ. It is not by our own power that we are able to overcome our sinful desires. If we allow Him to do so the Holy Spirit will put to death the deeds of our sinful nature. The Holy Spirit will help us in our weakness, even going so far as to teach us how to pray for that for which God desires us to pray.

    Paul tells us that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him. The translation notes offer an alternate translation which says that God works together with those who love Him to bring about what is good. I believe that both of these represent how God works in this world, the latter helps us understand what is meant by “good for those who love Him.” The more we love the Lord, the more we desire to suffer so that others will not. Further Paul tells us that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Even when we go through hardship and suffering God still loves us. No matter what we experience or do God will continue to love us. Even when we feel like God does not love us His love is there for us.

November 25, 2016 Bible Study –If We Do What Is Right We Will Not Have Time To Do What Is Wrong

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

dscn1098

Today, I am reading and commenting on Romans 8-10.

    In today’s passage Paul continues his discussion of following our sinful nature vs following the Spirit. Paul makes a very practical argument here, but because he words it as a theological argument it took me well into my adult years to understand it. If we allow the Holy Spirit to control our actions we will do the things we ought to do and we will not do the things we ought not do. On the other hand, if we allow our sinful nature to control our actions we will do the reverse. The key here is that if we spend our time doing the things which we know God desires us to do, we will quickly find that we do not have time to do the things which our sinful nature wants us to do. It is a decision each and every one of us must make, because the reverse is true as well. If we fill our time with activities which our purely for our own pleasure we will find that we do not have time for those volunteer activities to which God is calling us.

dscn1099

    One of the things I struggle with is prayer. I struggle with spending enough time praying. I struggle with what I should pray. I struggle with my faith that God answers prayer (which is, at least partially, related to my struggle about what I should pray). I know that if I can fully bring myself to understand and practice what Paul says about prayer in this passage God will resolve my struggles with prayer. If we allow Him to do so, the Holy Spirit will guide our prayers and, in some cases, pray for us. In this way the things we do not know how to present to God will be brought before Him and we will see Him answer these prayers we did not even know how to word.
    I was going to start a new section for this when I realized that it is really related to Paul’s message about prayer. Nothing is able to separate us from God’s love. Some people interpret this to mean that once a person has accepted God’s grace. no matter what that person chooses they will be with God forever. But that is not what Paul says. Rather, what Paul is saying is that no matter what we do, God loves us. He loves each and every person. So much so that He will allow those who want nothing to do with Him to experience the suffering which that inevitably entails. On the other hand, if we return God’s love, He manages everything that happens so that it works together for our good. No matter what we do in this life, God offers us the opportunity to be saved by believing in the depths of our being that Jesus was raised from the dead and publicly acknowledging that He is the One whom we obey.