God disciplines his people so that they will reflect his glory

The prophet Ezekiel received 3 visions of God’s glory. The first one was in relation to his commissioning as a prophet. The second one was about God’s glory leaving the temple and the third one was about God’s glory returning to the temple. Ezekiel was a true prophet of God because what he prophesied was not against God’s law and actually took place.

Ezekiel’s name means ‘God strengthens’. This is relevant for the people because, whilst God disciplined his people, he also gave them a future hope that one day there would be a restoration. A modern application of this is in relation to parents disciplining their children. The children are actually helped as a result of this when it is done in an appropriate way.

In the case of the nation of Israel, their discipline was necessary because of the grievous sin of idolatry. God had said ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ but the people had brought an idol of a false god and placed it in the temple next to the altar of sacrifice which represented Jesus. That is why other nations came in and destroyed the temple. They were allowed to do this because they were God’s instruments to correct his people.

 

 

 

 

The message of the prophet Ezekiel is, in many ways, a timeless one. What is recorded for us, however, consists mainly of a series of dated prophecies, not always in chronological order. These prophecies can be grouped into 3 types. Firstly, those highlighting Israel’s sin and impending severe discipline, secondly, those against the surrounding nations and thirdly, a promised restoration for the nation of Israel. Central to these prophecies are 3 passages depicting the divine glory.

The timelessness of these is in their application to the lives of God’s people in every age as individuals. They are also highly relevant for the NT church as a whole. In order to understand this it is necessary to first consider parts of the historical and religious background of the Jewish nation.

The nation had prospered in the time of King David and his son Solomon. After Solomon’s death it became divided with two different leaders. The dormant seeds of rebellion and idolatry had begun to shoot. God had said ‘You shall have no other god’s before Me.’ There were two different main centers of worship and the worship of God became compromised. King Manasseh even erected altars to false god’s in the House of the Lord. Why was this sin so serious? … because the altar to the living God in the temple was a symbol of the crucified Saviour dwelling in believers’ hearts by faith. The holy people of God who were meant to be a witness to His glory before the other nations, became an object of derision.

God severely disciplined His people and this culminated in them being taken into captivity by the Babylonians. The city of Jerusalem was overrun and the temple there, the main center of Jewish worship, was destroyed. God had seemingly rejected His people.

This, however, was not all that it seemed to be. The nations who had delighted in the plight of God’s people, were only His instruments. God brought serious retribution upon them for what they had done. Their treatment of the Israelites resulted in disastrous consequences for themselves.

Furthermore, after a period of 70 years, God eventually brought His people back from exile and into their own land. The temple in Jerusalem was restored and the people rejoiced. Ezekiel had prophesied all these things and the fulfilment of his prophecies confirmed that He was a true prophet of the living God.

 

 

You don’t have to be good to receive the most precious gift.

When it comes to figuring out what Christmas is about there are 2 main players – Santa and Jesus. As you walk through any shopping center you are bound to see one of them in the Christmas display. In a way both of them have a similar message – they both want to give you something.

Santa has presents that he wants to give you. And what do you have to do to get them? You have to be good. That is what Santa says to the children:  “Have you been good this year?” The message Santa gives is that you have to be GOOD to get the presents.

But Jesus says exactly the opposite. His gift is for those who know that they have’t been good. He has come to give forgiveness to those who know that they have ignored God.

The other big difference between Santa and Jesus is how long the gift will last.

With the stuff that Santa gives you are lucky if it lasts through Christmas Day – let alone all the way to next Christmas. If you are lucky you may get a warranty with the gift.

But Jesus promises his gift will last a lot longer than that. Listen to what he says:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have ETERNAL LIFE.”  

(John 3:16)

 

 

 

 

 

In this passage the apostle Paul says that God uses the spread of the gospel, the ‘good news’ about Jesus, to achieve His grand plan for the world. Paul is here revealing something which was hidden in Old Testament time even though the prophets did partially see into the mystery. The mystery is that both Jews and non-Jews would be made one through faith in Jesus Christ ….. heirs together, members together and sharers together …… all are placed on an equal footing because of the gospel.

It is a great privilege to be part of God’s grand plan. This involves sharing the message of good news about the beauty, glory and riches of Christ, accomplished at the cross. It is about how people can approach God with confidence, not in their own righteousness but in His. Paul was willing to suffer greatly in order to spread this message …… he even said ‘for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’

 

 

The law does not provide acceptance but shows us why we must have it.

The early church in Rome was made up of believers from two very different backgrounds. Some had been brought up as Jews …… others had not. There were tensions between the two groups and so the apostle Paul wrote a pastoral letter to the church. In this letter he explains what they have in common, which is the essential thing …… both groups of believers have been made right with God by trusting in Jesus Christ.

This would have raised a question for those with a Jewish background. What about God’s Law summarized in the Ten Commandments? They had been trained to obey this Law. The non-Jews had not. Paul uses two illustrations by way of an answer. The first one is from marriage. It shows that people must be released from trying to be made right with God by how well they keep the Law (the first husband). They must only rely on what Jesus (the second husband) has accomplished for them. This is received by faith, not anything a person does or does not do.

The second illustration is about a very troubled person. This further shows that trying to obey the Law cannot make someone right with God. This is even though the Law is good and alerts people to those things in them which are wrong. They must only trust in Jesus otherwise there will be divided loyalties which cause a conflict within the person.

 

 

 

 

 

Civilisation has tended to look down on singleness but in this passage we see that the apostle Paul supports it as a good thing and also to the glory of God. He was single himself and presents it as a gift from God which is not given to everyone.

For singles it is important not to make the decision for singleness if you don’t have the gift to do so. Not everyone is able to resist the pressures that are involved. This letter was written at a time when there was a wave of persecution against the church. In this context being married would potentially create more problems. So the gift of singleness would actually be beneficial.

There are 2 more reasons why singleness is helpful. One is that the single person has more freedom in the use of their time and the other is that their devotion to God is less hindered. The really important thing to remember, however, both for the married as well as the single, is that in the gospel, Jesus, in a very important sense, is their spouse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Rome is regarded as one of the most important pieces of literature ever written. But most people miss the point. Paul was used as a humble instrument of God to give pastoral guidance to Christians in the city of Rome. It was written about the middle of the first century AD to correct problems in the church.

We can’t be sure about how or when the church in Rome started but we do know what started it …. the wondrous ‘good news’ of Jesus’ substitutionary death and resurrection reached people in Rome.  Many of them would have been Jews. With the spread of the gospel message we can appreciate that there would also have been tensions within the Jewish community as some of them believed in Jesus and others rejected Him.

We can therefore understand the reaction of the Roman Emperor, Claudius, who issued an edict that all Jews were to leave Rome.  There is evidence of this in Acts Ch 18 which tells us about Paul’s meeting with two such Jewish Christians at Corinth in Greece. We read from Vs 2 as follows:

There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them and, because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.⁴ Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.           Acts 18:2-4 (NIV)

Five years after the edict, Claudius died and the Jews, along with the Jewish Christians, returned to Rome. During their absence, however, the Gentile believers in Rome would, no doubt, have been increasing in number. The joining of the two groups of believers together again, after such a long absence would have created a very complex pastoral situation in the church.

Approximately three years later the apostle Paul, wrote Romans. The central part of this letter is the teaching that people are made right with God, justified, by believing in what Jesus has done for them ….. not anything in or of themselves. It is the great leveler in the church.

There are all kinds of ways, however, in which people try to justify themselves. There are things like the quantity, value or rarity of certain types of material possessions. There is the family home, where it is located and the condition in which it is maintained. Other examples might be the type of work a person does and the positions which are obtained. It could also be the country lived in, the group of people with whom someone associates or the opinions which are held.

In the case of Jewish people it is likely to be the relationship they have to the Law of God. This carried over into the early Christian church which was mostly a mixture of Jewish and Gentile believers. Certain views of the place and purpose of God’s Law created big problems in the church. There were two extremes in particular. One was the teaching that a Christian must keep the Law, in addition to believing in what Christ accomplished, in order to be right with God. This is referred to as legalism and Paul addressed a type of this very forcefully in his letter to the Galatians. The other extreme was the complete opposite. Some said that for Christians the Law was irrelevant and started to live carelessly. The Greek word for this is anomia (Romans 6:19) from which we have the English word lawlessness.

There is also a third matter which needs to be considered in relation to God’s Law. It is not as obvious as the other two but no less important. It comes up for our attention in the second part of Romans Ch7 which we have just read. Paul uses a ’personal’ type of illustration to show that, whilst the Law is good, a believer can be very troubled because of indwelling sin. The situation here occurs when a believer has divided loyalties ……… coming to Christ but not dying to the Law. This involves a contradiction because, we see from the marriage illustration a person dies to the Law in order to be united to Christ. We should therefore not be surprised that in this illustration we see a type of division or conflict in the life of the person …….  at times we see something which is true of a Christian and then we see something else which is true of a non-Christian.

So let’s now come to the passage as we find the apostle’s ‘guidepost’ question and answer. Let’s see how he works it all through for the pastoral care of the church in Rome and, through the illumination of the same Holy Spirit, for people half a world away … two centuries later.

 

PASSAGES EXPLAINED/MAIN POINTS

V13 is pivotal for understanding what Paul is saying in the remaining part of this chapter.

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.  Rom 7:13 (NIV)

Paul has earlier stated that the Law is holy and righteous and good. Here he goes further and asks ‘did that which is good become death to me?’ and immediately answers this with ‘by no means’. The problem is sin not the Law. He goes on to say that sin ‘used what is good’, that is the Law, to bring about  “death”  ‘so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful’. So the problem that we are going to be looking at in what follows is a result of the presence of the Law, which is good, and sin which is deadly……. and all of this is in a gospel atmosphere …….  the church in Rome.

This brings us to the need to comment on the ‘personal’  illustration which has caused so much unnecessary debate. Some people take it to be Paul himself. Others assume it is a hypothetical person and there is also another school of thought which says the ’ I’ is symbolic of the nation of Israel. We don’t have to know who the person is in order to understand what Paul is getting at here. We just need to follow where the guidepost question points and  the line of Paul’s reasoning from there. Let’s read it again ….’did that which is good become death to me?’

In the illustration which follows and forms part of the answer to this question we find three things about the Law. Firstly, that the Law is spiritual, secondly that the Law is good and thirdly that it is a delight to this person …….. even though he experiences a terrible tension within because of indwelling sin. Let’s re-read part of the illustration (Vs 14-23):

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  Romans 7:14-23 (NIV)

So here we see one more thing about the Law …. a limitation. Even though it is good it cannot save a person from sin ….. it can only highlight the deadly problem. The person cries out in the next verse (Vs24):

²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?    Romans 7:24 (NIV)

In Ch7 of Romans we have two illustrations ……. one at the beginning and the second one which we have just read which is at the end. A particular application from the first illustration is very helpful for us in our understanding of the second one. It needs to be stated, once again, that the primary focus in this chapter is on the place and purpose of the Law as indicated by the question ……. ‘Did that which is good become death to me?’

So in considering the tension and conflict within this person we should be careful that it doesn’t take away from the main emphasis. We should also be aware that the teaching here would appear to be mainly directed towards those from a Jewish background. It follows from what Paul had said earlier in this letter about justification by faith apart from the works of the Law. This would have raised questions in the Jewish mind because of their strong connection to the Law of God. We can almost hear the question …..’What is therefore the place and purpose of the Law.’

With this in mind, we need to come back to the illustration at the beginning of Ch7 concerning marriage. Let’s re-read it (7:1-4):

Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? ² For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. ³ So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

⁴ So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. Romans 7:1-4 (NIV)

This illustration shows us that a person must be released from the Law, the first husband, in order to be ‘married’ to Christ. This release is brought about, however, not by the first husband dying, but by the person dying to the Law and being set free from it. In other words, the person is no longer trying to be justified by keeping the Law but by becoming ‘married’ to Christ …… justified by faith in Him.

A particular harmful situation, however, is depicted in Vs3 where there is an adulterous relationship. Let’s re-read the first part of Vs3:

 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive she is called an adulteress. Romans 7:3 (NIV)

We can understand this situation by what we have in the second illustration. Here the person is being drawn in two different directions and ends up with ‘divided loyalties’.

So we see in the final verse, Vs25, a type of conclusion to what we have in the latter part of this chapter. Here Christ is held out as the one who saves but the conflict remains for this troubled person. The reason is given in the final words (Vs25b):

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.  Romans 7:25b (NIV)

 

 Can these be the words of a healthy  Christian? The following may be helpful. Most, if not all, of us would be familiar with the expression ‘buy one get one free’. This raises the question:  Is the one we get for free really free?  No ……  because we had to pay something to get it. What we have in the ‘personal illustration’ of Romans 7 is someone who appears to be in a similar situation. Trying to be justified by keeping the Law whilst, at the same time, coming to Jesus Christ for the free gift. You cannot have it both ways because the two are opposed to each other …… ‘divided loyalties’.

Continuing with the ‘buy one get one free’ analogy , ‘legalism’, which is what Paul addresses in Galatians, is when the free one is received first and then you are told that you must also buy one.  The gospel way is when someone pays for the first one on our behalf. We can then freely receive the precious gift of forgiveness by faith.

 

APPLICATION

Christ’s disciples are constantly tempted to justify themselves by the things we do and the things we do not do. When it comes to God’s good Law, on the one hand we have legalism and its cousin, divided loyalties. These say that we must keep the Law in order to be fully justified. On the other hand we have ‘anomia’ and lawlessness which are telling us that now we have come to faith in Christ the Law is dead and irrelevant .We, however, must fix our eyes on Jesus, being justified by faith alone ……. ‘married’ forever to our wonderful Saviour who died on the cross and then rose again…………. to HIM be all the glory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What the apostle Paul has been saying about justification by faith, receiving by faith the free gift of forgiveness only because of what Jesus has done, raises a question about the place of the Law. The Law was held in very high regard by people from a Jewish background. As we have already seen in this letter, however, no-one can be made right with God by keeping the Law. What then is the place and purpose of the Law?

Paul says that the Law is definitely not nullified, instead it is upheld. There are at least two reasons for this answer. Firstly, as he had said earlier, “…..through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” Secondly, and related to the first, Paul says in one of his other letters,  “…. the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”

 

 

 

 

Many people know about the gospel … that the word means ‘good news’ and that it is something which Christians believe and want to tell others about. Very few people, however, really grasp the wonder of the message. This final part of the first section of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome shows more of the ‘how’ of the gospel …… how this free gift was achieved by Jesus ….. how people were saved before He came …. how to respond to this ‘good news’ by trusting,  by not boasting and by living right.

There are many ways in which people try to justify themselves. It can be the things a person accomplished ….. work success, important positions, athletic achievements. It can be possessions or relationships. But the gospel is entirely different. It does not require anyone to try to justify themselves. It ‘justifies the one who has faith in Jesus’. Its all about what HE accomplished at the cross as a substitute. In this way it can be offered to people who are poor or rich, people who are from all nationalities and all ages. It sets a person free from his/her sins and is truly ‘good news’.

 

 

 

 

 

King Saul reacted badly to a stern message he had received from the prophet Samuel. People must not quit like he did when things don’t work out to please them. Saul needed to learn that, as the King of Israel, everything must be done for God’s glory. If Jesus, the King of kings, had been proud He would never have gone to the cross.

Saul’s son, Jonathan, however, did not quit but went into battle against the Philistines. Jonathan acknowledged God’s power rather than his own. He trusted in God and won a great victory. When people trust in Jesus they find that His blood, shed on the cross, stops them from wanting their own way.