Church guide

Profound Good News in Romans Romans tells some News so profoundly Good that we humans can hardly take it in. Even theologians stumble over it, like the builders stumbled over the great stone that was quarried to be the headstone of Solomon's Temple (Matt. 21:42; Psalm 118:22). The problem is what Paul says: Christ became the "last" or Second Adam, reversing the condemnation that the first Adam brought on the entire human race. For "all men" He turned Adam's condemnation into justification, or a legal acquittal. "That News is too Good to be true," some objectors say. Well, here's what Paul says: "God's act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam's wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many [Greek, "all"], its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many [Greek, "all"] by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. And again, the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man's sin; for the judicial action, following on the one offence, resulted in a verdict of condemnation, but the act of grace ... resulted in a verdict of acquittal. ... As the result of one misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act is acquittal and life for all" (5:15-18, The Revised English Bible). The King James Version says, "the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." Someone asks, "We need 'justification by faith,' but isn't this 'justification by birth'?" No more than Adam's condemnation comes upon us all "by birth." Jesus took it all upon Himself, so that His title is, "Savior of the world" (John 4:42). The same "all [who] have sinned" are "being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:23, 24). This is why He sends His rain and sunshine on the just and the unjust alike. It's why we live. One very wise writer says, "The sinner may resist this love, may refuse; ... but if he does not resist he will be drawn to Jesus; ... to the foot of the cross in repentance." The only reason why Esau was lost is that "for one morsel of food [he] sold his birthright" that God gave him (Heb. 12:16, 17). Jesus does not merely want to be your Savior; He is your Savior. Don't resist Him! --Robert J. Wieland

It is with great sadness that I post this... Dorothy will be missed! http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dailylocal/obituary.aspx?n=dorothy-j-whiteman&pid=186297966&fhid=28394

"Jesus’ death was not a ritual sacrifice of appeasement but the supreme demonstration of God’s mercy. Jesus did not shed his blood to buy God’s forgiveness; Jesus shed his blood to embody God’s forgiveness."

The Gospel Is Not Magic There is nothing in this world that can confer grace and righteousness upon men, and there is nothing in the world that any man can do that will bring salvation. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, not the power of man. Any teaching that leads men to trust in any object, whether it be an image, a picture, or anything else, or to trust for salvation in any work or effort of their own, even though that effort be directed toward the most praiseworthy object, is perversion of the truth of the gospel--a false gospel. There are in the church of Christ no "sacraments" that by some sort of magical working confer special grace on the receiver; but there are deeds that a man who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and who is thereby justified and saved, may do as an expression of his faith. "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before prepared that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:8-10, KJV, margin. This is "the truth of the gospel," and it was for this that Paul stood. It is the gospel for all time. --E.J. Waggoner (Glad Tidings, pp. 33, 34).

His Grace--Greater Than Our Sin The apostle Paul was a gift to the followers of Jesus. He disdained any claim to be called "an apostle," thought of himself as "one born out of due time," "the least of the apostles" (1 Cor. 15:8, 9), "less than the least of all the saints" (Eph. 3:8). He never forgot his hatred of Jesus Christ; he had "persecuted the church of God" (1 Cor. 15:9). This was not a front; he understood corporate guilt. Whatever sin any descendant of the fallen Adam might commit, Paul saw he was capable of the same, for he understood the sinfulness of his natural-born genes inherited from the fallen Adam. The Holy Spirit taught him, but it's also true that never had a Jew (other than Jesus) studied the Bible as he did, gleaning truth that the Eleven had not understood, yet they were not jealous of him. Grasping the reality of his sin, he grasped Christ's righteousness. The Father sent "His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh" (ours; Rom. 8:3). Deep in the human heart are the rootlets of sin (7:7-11; what woke him up was the conviction of breaking the seventh commandment!). The pure law of God had nailed him like the most common sinner. The Son of God in our human flesh had met the grand Enemy in mortal combat in His human flesh and forever condemned sin there--a victory not one of earth's billions of "saints" had accomplished except by means of "the faith of Jesus." Alone, friendless, persecuted, rejected, Christ spent His entire life rejecting temptations to sin; His final test--the darkness on His cross. One sinful, selfish thought indulged would have cost Him His glorious victory. He shares His victory with us; if appreciated, "the righteous requirement of the law" becomes "fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the [Holy] Spirit" (Rom. 8:4). Those who so "walk" today are preparing for the soon coming of Jesus. "Unworthy"? Of course; but it's His grace--greater than our sin. --Robert J. Wieland

"The Clearest Gospel of All" Paul's book of Romans, for many years of my life, was as unintelligible as Albert Einstein's nuclear mathematics. I respected it highly; Romans was simply way over my head. I knew it was part of the Bible and therefore it must be part of the word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit. But Romans was for scholars, and I belonged in the kindergarten. Couldn't I get to heaven by staying in the gospel of Mark? For example, my pastor had clearly told me not to try to read the book of Revelation--"It's sealed," he said, "read Mark!" For me, Revelation and Romans shared a common unintelligible status. Then I learned that Martin Luther had declared Romans "the clearest gospel of all." I respected him, too; so think again. Then Romans 5 began to take a little shape for me in the mist, as a bit of sunlight pierces a foggy morning. Paul was getting one of his points across to me at last, at least beginning to: All the evil that Adam, our first father, had brought upon the human race was undone, reversed, corrected, by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Man the Bible says is the "last" or second Adam. All that the human race had lost in Adam was now restored "in Christ." Could that soul-shaking idea really be true? Or was I being naïve in my reading Romans? What Paul said is clear: "The gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man's sin [Adam's]; for the judicial action, following on the one offence [of Adam], resulted in a verdict of condemnation [on all men], but the act of grace, following on so many misdeeds, resulted in a verdict of acquittal. ... As the result of one misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act is acquittal and life for all" (vss. 16, 18, The Revised English Bible). I read it and re-read it; the "all" meant "all people," not just the ones that Calvin said God had predestined to be saved (and others lost)--no, as surely as "all people" had sinned so surely had Christ the second Adam given to the same "all people" a verdict of acquittal by virtue of His death for the world. He had died the death of the world! Now therefore the life the world enjoys is the gift of His sacrifice. If that's true, then it's time we start saying "Thank You" and that implies a lot. Fear is gone; now we have a wholly new motivation. --Robert J. Wieland

Excellent Post!