Does God Repent of Things He Has Done?

Does God Repent of Things He Has Done?

by Bob Burridge ©2012, 2023

Some texts in the Bible can seem confusing when taken by themselves. To overcome the confusion we need to remember some important principles.

1. What did the words mean to the original readers?
2. How does the text fit into the flow of thought in the Bible?
– first there’s the local context: What’s the flow of thought in the rest of the book where the passage is found?
– then there’s the theological context: What God had revealed about this in the other inspired books?
– and there’s the historical context: what had God made known up to the time of that writing?

In about 30 places in the Bible
it says that God was “sorry” about
something, or that he “repented”.


Genesis 6:6-7 is a prime example. The English Standard Version translates it this way:

6. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
7. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

The King James Version translates verses 6-7 this way:

6. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7. And the LORD said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.’ “

Did God regret something he had done? Did he really repent as if he had made a mistake? Did God wish he could change what he had formerly done? First we need to take a look at the larger context. What do clear Bible passages teach about God’s nature?

God’s nature is “immutable” (he does not change).


The Westminster Shorter Catechism answer to question 4 is, “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”

If this is true, God can never regret, make errors, or change his plans. God’s knowledge includes everything that will ever happen. There can be no reason for him to wish he could change or modify what he does.

James makes a direct statement in his epistle in James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

With God the Father there is “no variation”. The original Greek word there is “parallagae” (παραλλαγη). This is an astronomical term. From it we get the word “parallax”, a term still used in astronomy. In ancient times they could see that constellations appeared in different places as the seasons changed. Some dots of light in night sky moved into different constellations. They called them “wandering stars” (planets). Some objects in the night sky change their brightness regularly. With God there’s no variableness like what we see in the night sky.

With God there is “no shadow due to change” (tropaes aposkiasma, τροπης αποσκιασμα). This is another astronomical term, It has to do with changes in shadows cast by the sun and moon. As the sun and moon change their positions in the sky during the day or night, there is an observable change in the length and direction of the shadows they cast. This expression was used in reference to the eclipses of the sun and moon. Darkness took over parts of them. With God the Creator there is no such change. He is a steady and reliable light.

There is a direct statement in Psalm 102:26-27 about the earth and the heavens, “They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.” This reminds us that though the earth and heavens change with time. Their Creator doesn’t change.

There are many texts where God’s inability to change is made clear. For example, Numbers 23:19, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” And Malachi 3:6, “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”

God has all things under his sovereign control as it says in Psalm 135:6, “Whatever the LORD pleases,
he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.”

Ephesians 1:11-12, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.”

God even controls the plans of humans. Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” Proverbs 19:21, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.”

Open Theism teaches that God is open to change and adjusts his plans to new circumstances. Those promoting this view reject the biblilcal attributes of God (immutable, omnipotent, omniscient …). They say it’s wrong to view God as infinite and unchangeable. However, their view is based upon total misunderstandings of what the Bible actually says. They misuse the verses about God repenting or changing as if he regrets things he’s done.

So then, How Does an Unchangeable God Repent?


The Hebrew word here for “repent” or “change” is nakham (נחם). It’s translated many ways in the Bible depending upon the context. Most often it is translated either “to be sorry”, “to repent”, or “to comfort”, seemingly very different ideas.

The Brown Driver and Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (BDB) defines it this way: “to be sorry, to be consoled, to be moved to pity, to have compassion, to be comforted, to be relieved.”

Uses of this Hebrew word show that it describes the reaction of a person to some sorrowful event. The person grieves over the tragedy of some event or situation. The person longs to find comfort from those sorrowful feelings. The focus of the word is upon the impact some disturbing thing has had upon him. The word doesn’t fit with our English words “repent” or “regret” as we commonly use those words today.

When we repent over our sins, our response is grief over the offense they cause to God. When God “repents” he has nothing to regret in himself. He has nothing for which to be sorry. God answers to no one but himself and to his own perfect and eternal plan. The sins of mankind offend him deeply. These sorrowful occurrences are used by God as means to accomplish all he’d purposed to happen. When God observes these tragic outworkings of evil, he is grieved over the sin, but he turns them into occasions to reveal his justice in his judgments, and his mercy in redemption. The word nakham (נחם) beautifully conveys this response.

To communicate to us the offense toward God which is produced by the sins of his creatures, the Bible uses a human response we all understand. We often experience grief, sorrow, and a need for consolation. When a human emotion is used to explain how God responds to something, we call it an “anthropopathism”, a human feeling.

We are probably more familiar with the term, “anthropomorphism”, a human-like physical thing. That’s when some physical part of man is used to represent something about God. The Eternal God has no physical body. He is revealed as spirit. However, the Bible speaks of God’s hands, eyes, feet, wings, feathers, … etc. These communicate to us that he controls, sees, comforts, and such things.

In an “anthropopathism” some emotion or feeling of man is used to explain something about God. God’s spirit nature is very different in comparison with our human nature. Yet to know how much God is offended by sin and rebellion, these human terms are used to communicate to us his response in a way we can understand. Changes in how God treats people are based upon changes in them, not upon changes in God. It shows how God reveals his unfolding decrees to us in our timeline.

In Eden before the fall, God is seen blessing man in his innocence. Then he casts man out for his sin and deep offense. In the time of Noah he warned that the whole human race deserved destruction. By grace he chose Noah and preserved the human race beyond the flood.

All of these events of history were carried out according to God’s decree. The plan included allowing man to sin. God’s judgments show no change neither in God’s mind, nor in his plan. His sorrow shows us the affront of sin to his holiness.

The changes in human relationships with God reflect the Creator’s eternal and immutable decree as it unfolds. His plan takes into account human rebellions which accomplish his goal, even though that means enduring great offense from men’s sins.

Now we apply this to the text in Genesis 6:6-7

6. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
7. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (ESV)

Regret has no place here at all. God cannot regret or make mistakes. Even the grief of God in verse 6 is not the same as human grief. God’s eternal blessedness is never interrupted even though in time God permitted sin. In Romans 1:25 God is said to be “blessed forever.” Dr. Charnock points out that grief as we know it is inconsistent with undefiled blessedness. God’s blessedness can’t be impaired or interrupted. This language is an accommodation to our “limited creaturely capacity” to understand.

Genesis 6:6 reflects a change in God’s treatment of mankind, not a change in his plan. It fulfills his unchanging resolution to punish justly, and it shows how he detests sin. If God regretted, or admitted that his plan did not turn out as he intended, it would be contrary to direct statements where God tells us that he is totally Sovereign, and that he’s foreseen all that will come to pass.

Our unchangeable God can never regret what he’s done. Passages that appear to say otherwise need to be more carefully examined to understand the point being made.
1. Consider what God has directly stated elsewhere. This rules out what the passages cannot mean. God is perfect. His plan is unchangeable. No Bible passage can teach that God regrets or repents as we do.

2. Discover what the original words mean, and how they were commonly used. The word translated as “repent” or “sorry” is not equivalent to our word “regret”. It’s mainly about his discomfort connected with sorrowful things.

3. Consider the attitude of God described in these passages. We need to understand what the human emotion represents in the infinite and unchangeable being of God. God is offended by sin. It appalls him. It causes what was created in a blessed state to be treated at a later time with judgment and contempt.

God’s immutability is both a sober warning, and a comforting assurance. God’s true nature is an uncomfortable fact for those who remain unredeemed by Christ. For those brought into the family of God by grace, it is a wonderful truth. God can’t go back on his promises, nor can his plan fail in any way. His blessings and judgments are sure.

Note: Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

Hallowing God’s Name

Hallowing God’s Name

by Bob Burridge ©2012
(Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 101)
(Watch the Video)

The first petition in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9) asks for our Heavenly Father’s name to be hallowed. “Hallowed” is one of those words few of you use much in general conversations unless you’re talking about the Lord’s Prayer. Although it’s an archaic word in English that only shows up now and then in some old writings, we need to know what it means because here it is in the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer.

When you hallow something, you mark it out as special in a good and honorable way. In this case, Jesus tells us that when you pray you should ask that God’s name be hallowed.

The Greek word in the original text of Matthew is hagiasthaeto (ἁγιασθητω). It’s based upon the word hagios (ἁγιος), usually translated by the word “holy”. When something is holy it is set aside or marked out as special in a good way. We hallow it.

God is holy. He is more unique and special than all else that exist. He is the most unique of all unique things. 1 Samuel 2:2, “No one is holy like the Lord, For there is none besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God.”

We can translate this part of the Lord’s Prayer, “… let your name be specially honored.”

It’s neither telling us to pray that his name should become holy, as if it wasn’t already, nor that we want him to become more holy. His uniqueness is already perfect in every good way. It means that we want his name be recognized for what it is. Our desire is that it would be treated in a most holy way as a testimony to our respect for the one who bears that name.

We should not come to God with casual familiarity. We should come solemnly to this absolutely glorious God, the one who made all things, sustains all things, and who redeemed the lost in gracious love.

The thing that we hallow in prayer
is the Name of God, our Father in heaven.

But what’s in a name? Isn’t is just a word? Shakespeare put it this way in the well known words of Juliet, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.”

She meant that her family name and Romeo’s were not going to define them. Though the Montagues and Capulets were violent enemies, they were not going to let mere words or labels stand in the way of their love.

But they were more than just words. The names represent realities and histories. Romeo and Juliet suffered and tragically died because of what those names represented.

God’s name is more than a word. It represents what he is and what he tells us about himself. We need to know what we mean when we make reference to God.

The Bible uses many different words to refer to God. The Old Testament uses the Hebrew words for God: אל (el) or אלוהים (elohim). The New Testament uses the Greek word θεος (theos). That’s where we get the word “Theology” the Study of God. Both Testaments sometimes call him Lord, King, Father, Savior, Judge, Creator, Sustainer and many other titles.

God revealed his covenant name to Moses. It’s often translated as Jehovah. It’s the Hebrew “tetragrammaton” (four letters) יהוה corresponds with Y-H-V-H . The original vowels weren’t written in Ancient Hebrew, just the 4 consonants. The German Scholars used different consonant letters because their Alphabet is different. The “Y” and “V” sounds was represented by the German letter like our “J” and “W”. This produced an academic pronunciation of the name which differs from scholar to scholar. They range from “Jehovah” to “Yahweh” and some other academic variations.

Most accurately, research shows that the ancient Hebrew pronunciation would have been “Yah-VEH”. A lot of research went into restoring Hebrew pronunciation when Israel was set up as a modern nation after World War 2. A good analysis of how that pronunciation was restored is at the “Hebrew4Christians” website.

Out of respect, God’s people in the Old and New Testaments generally didn’t pronounced this special name. It was read as “Lord” (Hebrew אדני [adonai], and in the New Testament, the Greek κύριος [kurios]). For example: Jesus in Matthew3:3 said “Lord” when quoting Isaiah 40:3. The same with Paul in Romans 9:29 when quoting Isaiah 1:9. So even the Holy Spirit led the New Testament writers to use the word for Lord when quoting the Old Testament.

It’s not the words themselves that are important, or that need to be hallowed. It is what these names represent. In Exodus 34:6-7 God explains his own name, YHVH which is translated there as Lord, “And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.’ then in verse 8 it says, ‘So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.’ ”

Moses was humbled and moved to worship when he was reminded of all that God is. We reverence the words because of what they mean. God’s name is to be hallowed because he is uniquely unique above all else that is.

The negative side was given in the Third Commandment.

Exodus 20:7,”You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.”

When God’s name is used, or any of the words that describe his perfections and divine work, there should be a solemn awareness of what it means. To use his name in vain means to use it casually without really meaning what we say.

Most obviously we offend God when his name is used as an expletive to express emotions. People use his names to show frustration, surprise, or anger. They use the words “God,” “Lord,” “Jesus,” “Christ,” or even “Jehovah” as vain expressions. When people throw words like “Oh God,” or “Good Lord” into conversations they are quick to point out that they don’t really mean anything by it. That’s exactly what the word “vain” means.

The names of God identify him with all his unique divine attributes. He is the one who is Just, Holy, Gracious, and Merciful. When we use words like those in a vain or in a profane way, we violate this commandment. These words are used at times as names of God in Scripture.

One of the names used for God in the Bible is “Holy.” He is the perfection of holiness. All other holiness must come from him. To speak of holy cows and such things trivializes this characteristic of God.

Only God can condemn someone to eternal punishment. To use words like “hell” and “damn” in a profane way is to trivialize the very serious acts of God’s judgment. Sin and it’s eternal penalty are not trivial. They are a tragic reality. The application of them must always be God’s own prerogative.

To use words about what God is and does, but without really meaning what they stand for, is to vainly take up these words. The enemy of our soul is quick to get us to use high and holy words in ways that corrupt them and numb us to their meaning. One of the greatest joys to Satan and evil is to get God’s people to take God lightly, to make him an object of our humor and careless expressions, to diminish his holiness and trivialize his glory.

All this may seem innocent, unimportant, and trivial, but God made the honoring of his name the Third Commandment.

Some even violate the Third Commandment during worship. They let their minds wander off to other things while they sing his name, repeat creeds, hear scripture read and expounded, and when they pray. If while doing these good things your minds are not thinking of God when you say his name, you take it up without meaning and use it in vain.

In the Lord’s Prayer we have the
positive side of this moral principle.

The Third Commandment tells us how not to treat God’s name. Here Jesus tells us how his name ought be treated.

One of the first goals of our prayers is to ask that God’s name should be hallowed. It should be used with special awareness of all that God is. Pray that you will hallow the names of God. You might avoid the vain use of his name by just not mentioning him much, but the duty you have is to glorify him and to promote that glory.

Talk about him and his truths in a natural and respectful way. Don’t let people assume that God has become unimportant in this world. You can change that perception by speaking naturally about him in your daily conversations, by hallowing his name. Don’t be satisfied with the general words about God which are so confused and watered down today. Clarify why God is so important to you. Honor the name of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, as Shepherd and Comforter. Avoid trivial expressions about him, but do not keep silent.

Psalm 96:2-3 tells us, “Sing to the Lord, bless His name; Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples.”

Pray that God will make you grow to more appreciate his absolute uniqueness over all that is. When you see his glory you will not have to work hard to let it show to others. Ask God to teach you about his own special nature. Study his word to learn more about him. Ask him to give you the humility to know how far short you fall of his perfections.

Let the names of God remind you that you owe him for all your skills, ideas, and abilities. Thank him for the faith he put in your heart, for the spiritual strength you draw from him, and for the grace that richly blesses you because of his perfect and undeserved love. Learn to rest in his perfect sufficiency and promises.

Pray that God would stir you to conform your whole life, all your thoughts, words and deeds, to that perfect moral standard, the unique holiness of God.

Pray that others will hallow the names of God too. Do all you can to help them come to understand God’s absolute uniqueness and perfection.

For the lost to become able to hallow God’s name, they need to become believers. Not just accepting some list of facts, or theological ideas. Not just making a personal decision, or reaching some emotional conviction. They need to rest in Christ alone for all that he is and has done. Only by his work on the Cross can anyone understand the real holiness of God and hallow his name. Tell them about the wonderful gospel that can really change their lives. Help them join with God’s people for worship, instruction, and encouragement.

This is how we hallow his name. It is what we expect our prayer to accomplish.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Index of Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism

Watch for the Warnings

Lesson 40: Romans 10:18-21

Watch for the Warnings

by Bob Burridge ©2012

Living in Florida we hear a lot about hurricane warnings. Many thousands of lives have been saved by the amazingly helpful warnings. Thankfully, we have not had an actual hurricane hit our area for many decades. But we have seen the horrible results of those category five storms and smaller ones that skirt the coast. Precious lives have been lost, thousands left homeless, and damage in the staggering range of billions of dollars.

When the storms are over, there are always those who become cynical. Some in Florida have complained that they were evacuated needlessly. The foolish come to ignore the warnings and are likely to become future victims.

Some ignore warnings even when the danger is obvious and imminent. One news report showed a car entering a street flooded with water. Ahead was another car that had been caught in the rising water. Only the top of its roof showed above the surface. The approaching car entered the flooded street anyway. As the front of the car slowly dipped below the surface, the news commentator said, “Sometimes, you’ve got to wonder.”

When I was a scout, our troop often went camping in the snowy Western New York winters at the Schoellkopf Scout Reservation, near Cowlesville. One morning the lure of a freshly snow covered hill tempted me to break the rules. It had been a typical late night of telling silly jokes, trying to out-do one another with scary stories, and good natured torments of one another.

The next morning, while everyone else was still in bed sleeping it off, I ventured out with my sled to the top of the long sloping driveway that let to the meeting hall. We had been warned not to be out of the cabins until we heard the morning bugle.

The crunching of the freshly fallen snow under my boots should have been a further warning, but I pressed on to the highest point, imagining the fast ride I’d have as the first one down the hill that day. I stopped at the top and placed my sled on the ground aiming at the steep slope in front of me. I took a moment to notice the beauty of the rising sun glistening on the crust that had formed over the deep powder underneath — that was the last warning, which I also chose to ignore.

Without another thought I flopped down on the sled which began sliding faster and faster. The frozen crust on top of the snow was slick. As I picked up speed I steered along the road feeling the cold air blow past my face.

Suddenly something unexpected happened! My sled broke through the crust of ice and continued on through the loose snow underneath. However, laying on the sled, I was just about at the level of the ice as my face tore through the sharp edges.

It hurt a bit and I was quite disappointed that my ride came to such a sudden end. So I dug out my sled and trudged into the cabin where others were beginning to emerge from their sleeping bags and gather around the little pot-bellied wood stove. When I walked in everyone went silent and stood there staring at me in shock. “What happened to you?” was the first thing I heard.

I managed to work up a smile on my rather frozen cheeks. But someone handed me a mirror, and to my shock, my face was covered with blood. I had cuts from the ice all over my nose and cheeks which took weeks to heal. You can imagine my poor parents when I showed up at home after the camp weekend was over.

There are warnings all the time. It’s wise to pay attention to them. In our modern age we get advanced warnings of storms, fires and drought. We have alarms that tell us when burglars break into our houses or cars. There are the warnings of parents, teachers and consumer agencies. But even the good advice does little good if we ignore it.

There are spiritual warnings too, that God lovingly gives to alert his children. They come to us in God’s word preserved for us in our Bibles. We need to take them seriously. God also put examples in Scripture of how others have responded to the warnings. Ancient Israel had done very poorly with the cautions of the prophets.

The Gospel was not what the Jews expected, or wanted. They turned the promises of grace into works of merit and special privilege. It was hard for them to accept the words of the Prophets that predicted God’s judgment on them, and that there would come a time when all nations will be equally blessed by God.

In our last study in Romans 10 we saw that Paul wrote in verses 12-13, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’ ”

The Jews hated that message, and for it they persecuted the Christians. Romans 10:16-17, “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘LORD, who has believed our report?’ So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Unlike the Messiah the Jews came to expect, Jesus came as a suffering Messiah. His gospel included the Gentiles as equals in God’s Kingdom. This was not a new message. There had been warnings included in the prophetic word they should have recognized.

Paul asked a question to get them to realize
how they had ignored the clear warnings.

Romans 10:18, “But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed: ‘Their sound has gone out to all the earth, And their words to the ends of the world.’ “

Paul was quoting a very familiar Old Testament texts from Psalm 19. In verse one it says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.” Then in verse four it says, “Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. …”

The Psalmist was speaking of how God makes himself known to all in nature. Everything he made is showing his glory and divine nature. It is so clear that even the unbeliever is said to be without excuse for not honoring God as revealed. Paul said in Romans 1:20. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”

So if God proclaims his word in nature to all men indiscriminately, then why should the Jews complain about the gospel being proclaimed to all nations too? This is Paul’s reason for quoting this verse here. Have all heard? and are held responsible for honoring God? Absolutely!

Hengstenberg wrote, “the universal revelation of God in nature, was a providential prediction of the universal proclamation of the gospel.” If the word of God goes out to all by what he made, then the gospel should too.

This should not have been a surprise to the Jews.
They had been warned it would happen.

Romans 10:19, “But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says: ‘I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation, I will move you to anger by a foolish nation.’ “

So was this new information for Israel? No. Moses had warned that God would use an ignorant nation to make Israel jealous. Paul was quoting from Deuteronomy 32:21, “They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; They have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols. But I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation; I will move them to anger by a foolish nation.”

God would stir up this apathetic and proud nation. The word translated “to make jealous” is qinnae (קנא), which means “to stir up to zeal, enthusiasm, passion.” The word translated “to anger” is ca’as (כעס), means “to irritate, provoke to anger.”

Israel had stirred the wrath and anger of God by idolatry. The god they were worshiping was not the same as the one described in their Bibles. As they had provoked him, God would stir them up specifically to a passion of anger.

There it was! a specific warning if Israel did not repent of her rebellious ways. God would use a nation that was not his people to stir them up. It was going to be a prophetic judgment, and the sign would be the use of the Gentiles.

That’s exactly the result the gospel produced. In Acts 4:1-3 we see what happened when the first offer of the gospel came to the Jews, “Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.”

As the gospel first started to spread, the book of Acts shows its results among the Jews. They were not content to not believe. They were stirred to rage over the gospel!

Acts 13:45, “But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul.”

Acts 17:5, “But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.

Acts 17:13, “But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds.

Acts 22:22, “And they listened to him until this word, and then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live!”

Matthew Henry explains, “God often makes people’s sin their punishment.” In Romans 1:26-27 Paul said this directly, “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”

I wore scabs and marks on my nose and cheeks for weeks after my sled rebellion. My sin of not paying attention to the warnings brought a very natural penalty. It would have been fitting if God had given me over to do the same stupid thing again. But in his mercy, he didn’t. He taught me a lesson instead. I learned that it’s not smart to ignore the warnings when you see them.

More seriously people wear the scars of their sinful lusts and addictions in ruined bodies, shattered lives, and troubled souls. Israel was given over to the god she had cherished more than the true God. As you sin, God may give you over to your offensive behavior too! There is nothing so alarming than when a person who says he is a believer ignores God’s warnings. Particularly when he admits that something is sin, but continues in it anyway. That was the message God’s prophets brought to Israel that revealed her true lostness. That is the message that should send absolute alarm to the soul of any who hears it today.

Hearing the languages of foreign nations being spoken in their midst, was a sign to alert Israel. This is how God would sound his warning to the Jews for their unfaithfulness, that God would judge them by using the Gentiles.

This was predicted when Israel was still wandering in the wilderness. The warning is recorded in Deuteronomy 28:49 “The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand.”

Isaiah said it again when the Jews rebelled in later times. In Isaiah 28:11 it says, “For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people.”

In the New Testament, on the day of Pentecost, God marked the beginning of the New Era. The work of Jesus was finished, so the Temple, its priesthood, and sacrifices were ended. The Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Christians to mark God’s anointing of them as the ones he would empower to be Jehovah’s continuing Covenant People as the prophet Joel had predicted. This also marked the bringing in of Gentiles, and the end of the Jewish era. God supernaturally moved them to speak in other languages to confirm his warnings. As Luke records it in the book of Acts 2:4, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

This special experience was repeated as the Gospel came to other communities in the first few decades of expansion. Some in Corinth corrupted this prophetic sign as if it was a special continuing gift. When Paul corrected them he quoted directly from the warning in Isaiah 28:11. In 1 Corinthians14:21 he wrote, ” ‘With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me,’ says the Lord.” He added that last part of Isaiah 28:12, “yet they would not hear.”

Israel had not paid attention to the warnings of the prophets. They re-interpreted the signs into privileges, instead of indicators of danger and pending judgment. The covenant penalties were about to fall, and the Gentile era was about to begin.

Even today, some imagine the sign of speaking in tongues as a continuing gift for the church. They make the sign of judgment into a badge of spiritual pride. Those who believe that God moves people to supernaturally speak in tongues today, sadly pervert one of the covenant alarms. Though unknowingly, they turn it into a distortion of what God said it would be.

The gathering in of the Gentiles was
an amazing message of grace.

Romans 10:20, “But Isaiah is very bold and says: ‘I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.’ “

Again Paul used the Bible to show the Jews that God had already clearly warned them. He quoted from Isaiah 65:1, “I was sought by those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am,’ To a nation that was not called by My name.”

God was to be found by those not even seeking him, by Gentiles. What a humiliation to those in the unbelieving nation of Israel, and an amazing display of grace, that totally undeserved favor of God. Israel had forgotten her own past. She had not earned her place as God’s nation. It was God’s sovereignly imposed covenant alone that made an unworthy race into a people so richly blessed. The Gentiles were no more undeserving than was Israel, or than is anyone. God’s sovereign right to save those whom he chooses is confirmed.

God’s warnings also show his
tender care that never fails.

Romans 10:21, “But to Israel he says: ‘All day long I have stretched out My hands To a disobedient and contrary people.’ “

God had patiently offered his warnings. Now he was giving this final prophetic sign to the Jews to call them to come back to his truths. Paul continued the quote from Isaiah 65:2 about God’s perseverance and longsuffering, “I have stretched out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, Who walk in a way that is not good, According to their own thoughts.”

God’s faithful love to his people continued, even though they ungratefully provoked him.

It is the foolish and immature who ignore clear warnings about dangerous things. There are flood victims who drive their cars directly into raging torrents of water. There are those who disable fire alarms so they won’t wake them up at night. Then there was that scout who took an early morning sled ride against the warnings of those in charge and the ominous signs that the hill was dangerous. There are those who read the warnings of Scripture about the offense our sin causes against God, of the judgments that will fall on those whose faith proves to be a deception, of the awesome price that was paid to overcome the serious consequences of our guilt, yet they continue in the same sin and self-arrogance imagining that somehow they will escape the consequences.

God’s warnings come to his erring children to call them back, not to torment them. Even a study like this one might be the sounding of a spiritual alarm in your heart. What will you do with that warning? Will you be like Israel and basically ignore it? Will you presume that since you are in a sound church, or have made a particular profession of faith, or been baptized into membership, or done some good things every day, or belong to a Christian family, that somehow God will count that as merit? Do you think you can impress God enough so that you can continue in sin with no consequences? What a foolish deception human hearts throw over the truth of God’s loving word.

Rather, when you see your sin it should humble you to think that by grace God loves you in Christ. Considering his undeserved mercy, and patient warnings, you ought to love him all the more!

How God has stretched out his hands to call you back when you wander. He has given loving warnings as a caring father to his children threatened with danger. He has been so loving and good, yet still he is relegated to such a low place in some lives.

He warns us that, though he bears long, he does not wait forever. In time the corrupt nature of some emerges above their empty claims. It becomes evident that they are not the Lord’s people at all.

Isaiah 5;3-6 tells exactly how that was to happen to unbelieving Israel, “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard. What more could have been done to My vineyard That I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, Did it bring forth wild grapes? And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned; And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste; It shall not be pruned or dug, But there shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds That they rain no rain on it.”

By grace, God calls you to be a loving and faithful part of his family. But his call also transforms your soul so that his warnings will not go unheeded. When you sense the conviction of the Holy Spirit it should be great cause for thankful praise that God is indeed your Father and persistently warns you as his child.

Prove that conversion by responding with sincere repentance and a passion for pleasing God in all you think, say, and do.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Back to the Index of Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Directing Our Prayers to God

Directing Our Prayers to God

by Bob Burridge ©2012
(Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 100)
(Watch the Video)

Prayer in one form or another is part of nearly every religion. We are all created with a need to communicate with God. The problem is our fallen nature. Sin confuses things and prayer is no exception.

Some become enemies of prayer. They admit to no need for it. In trying to push God out of their conscience they would ban it from every public place if they could. They are not content to refuse to pray on their own, they do not want to see others doing it either.

Some confuse prayer by treating it as if it was little more than a magical incantation. They imagine that the speaking of certain words have a power of their own to make things happen the way they want.

Some think of prayer as a way to advise God about what they believe is really best. They think that if they could just get God to listen to their advice, things will work out better than if God decided on his own what was best.

Some pray to God just to get what they want. To them it’s like making a wish list. People register for wedding and shower gifts at their favorite stores and websites, so they figure that prayer works about the same way. They think of God as a business that dispenses blessings when ever they are applied for, as long as we ask in just the right way.

There are also those who approach God casually as if he was their equal, or someone who owes them a favor. However, that’s not at all what prayer is about. We need to know what God says it is, and how it should be done.

Jesus gave us a model to teach us the right way to pray.

In Matthew 6:9 Jesus introduced his model prayer by saying, “In this manner, therefore, pray: …” A good accurate translation of the first part of verse 9 is, “Therefore you should pray this way:” The Greek words are houtos oun proseuchesthe humeis (Οὕτως οὖν προσεύχεσθε ὑμεῖς·) .

The “therefore” [oun (οὖν)] builds upon the warnings against hypocrisy in the section just before this. Prayer is not a way to display piety, to impress people, or to draw attention to yourself. It’s a humble way to really communicate to God. It therefore needs to honor and please the one you are addressing in your prayer.

Here in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gives us an example to teach us how to pray. We usually call it The Lord’s Prayer. The first part tells us about the one to whom we direct our prayers.

We come to God as “our Father”

The Bible tells us that God is not everybody’s Father in the same way. As Creator, all creatures owe their existence to him as their Father in the limited sense of giving them existence and life. Even those who are his most determined enemies, live and are cared for by his provisions. All our abilities and opportunities are his gifts. He sustains all of nature by upholding what we call natural laws. In this very limited sense God is the Father of all creation. It is this that all the more condemns the lost who fail to give him the glory for all they have.

There is yet another way he is the Father of some but not of others. He is specially the Father of his spiritually adopted children. Out of the unworthy human race, God chose some to be his spiritual family. He did not choose them because they were better in any way. They were chosen by grace alone. God promised by covenant to pay for their sins, and to adopt them as his own children. Throughout the Bible God is specially called the Father of his covenant people.

To Israel Moses said in Deuteronomy 32:6 “… Is He not your Father, who bought you? …” The prophet in Isaiah 63:16 cried out on behalf of Israel, “… You, O Lord, are our Father; …” In Isaiah 64:8 it was said, “But now, O Lord, You are our Father; …”

Paul wrote to the church in Romans 8:15 “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ ” And here in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray to God as our Father.

God is not the Father of all people in that special way. The sin of Adam and our own sins alienate us from God. Only those redeemed by the death of Jesus are adopted into his family. He did not pay the debt for all, but for only some chosen by grace. If you trust in Jesus alone for your salvation, and you are truly sorry for your sins, it is not your doing. There is no reason for pride. Your faith and conviction should make you humbly thankful for a blessing you could never deserve.

This is one of the most denied, most disliked, yet most clear messages of the Bible. In Ephesians 1:3-5 Paul explained it this way, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,”

Jesus had a very different message than what the Pharisees believed about their relationship with God as their Father. In John 8:44 he told them, “You are of your father the devil, …”

In First John 3:1 it says, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”

God’s special redeeming love is not universal according to the Bible. The Universalists reject the Bible because they are not able to accept that fact. They teach that all humans are God’s children in that special way. They deny that man is separated from God by sin. Their idea of the “Brotherhood of Men and the Fatherhood of God” appeals to the lost heart. The problem is, it’s simply not true. It’s like telling a seriously ill patient that he’s not really sick. He might like to hear that kind of news, but if it makes him ignore treatment the results are tragic. Jesus said in John 14:6, “… No one comes to the Father except through me.”

It is understandable that those still blinded by sin would prefer what is not true. This is exactly how Paul explained it in 2 Thessalonians 2:11, “And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,” In the first chapter of Romans he said that they, “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” … and “exchanged the truth of God for a lie.”

God’s people have a wonderful promise in calling God their Father. He is the perfect father no human could ever be. Even the best of human parents are imperfect. They could always learn to love and to care for their children with more patience, compassion, and skill. When human parents try to control all that happens to their children, it only leads to their own frustration, and to their children’s exasperation. But as God’s children we pray to a Father who cares for us perfectly. He knows what is really best for us, and he has the power to see that it happens. When he allows things into our lives that are painful or that we don’t understand, it’s not because he overlooked something or that he doesn’t love us. We must remember that we don’t yet understand how it all fits into his loving plan. In our uncertainties, we can still rest in his perfect love and power. God never fails us. He gave us life, redeems us, and provides peace, comfort and hope for his children. So we come to him with a deep sense of humble gratitude. We honor him and stand in awe of him.

This does not mean that all our prayers have to begin with the words “Our Father.” This is a model prayer. Jesus is not just giving us words to be repeated. It’s the meaning that’s important. There are many prayers in the Bible that do not begin that way. For example, in Acts 1:24 the prayer begins with “You, O Lord …”. In Acts 4:24 the people prayed, “Lord, you are God …”

The first Christians were students of the Bible. Their prayers usually follow the patterns in the Psalms. They understood that they were God’s children by grace through Christ, so they thought of God as their Father in that special sense. Sometimes Biblical prayers are directed to Jesus Christ as God the Son, our Mediator. In Revelation 22:20 John’s brief closing prayer is “Come, Lord Jesus!” The Holy Spirit is not the usual object of direct prayer. Mediating with God’s children is primarily the Son’s work. The Holy Spirit ministers as sent to us by the Father and the Son.

All our prayers are to be directed to God only. It is a horrible sin to pray to angels, or to or through dead humans, even specially saintly ones. Angels are spirit beings who may carry out the Father’s instructions, but they do not follow our instructions, and they never act on their own. No direct appeal to angels is ever approved in Scripture. Biblically, it is a serious sin against God and a violation of the First Commandment to pray to or through any created being, be they humans or angels.

When we pray to our Father we
understand that he is “… in heaven …”

The most literal reading is “… the one who is in the heavens” ho en tois ouranois (ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς·)

The children’s catechism wisely tells us that “God is everywhere”. In 1 Kings 8:27 it says, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!” That means that God cannot be located in just one particular place. We call this his Ubiquity – “God is everywhere.”

He is never in one place more than he is in any other place. He is altogether completely everywhere. We call this God’s Immensity – “God fills all space”. Jeremiah 23:24 says, ” ‘Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?’ says the Lord; ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord.”

God is also what we call Omnipresent – “He is there in everyplace personally all the time.” Psalm 139:7-10 describes this amazing quality of God, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.”

No one can escape the presence of God. That means that his children can never become lost from him. When we pray, he is right there by our side. When we are not praying, his is still completely there, even when we are not thinking about him, even when we do things that offend him.

Children might fool their parents for awhile by hiding stashes of junk food from them, or by keeping certain misbehaviors a secret. But nothing can be hidden from God our Heavenly Father. He not only sees, he is there. With modern technology people are so worried that “Big Brother is watching,” when they should be more aware that our Heavenly Father is watching, and always has been!

So then, if God is everywhere, why direct our prayers to God “in heaven”?

Thinking of heaven as a physical place is not very helpful. It cannot be located on star charts, or with coordinates in light years from some fixed spot in the universe. People point upwards as if heaven was above them. If someone in Australia is pointing up at the same time as someone in New York City, he’s pointing out into space in nearly the opposite direction. At noon you point up toward the sun. At midnight pointing up is away from the sun.

One of the early Russian Cosmonauts said he didn’t see God or heaven in space. That did not trouble real Christians because for us heaven is not a castle floating above the clouds.

There is good Scriptural evidence that heaven is best thought of as existing in a dimension other than what we perceive in our three dimensional world of space. Mathematical multidimensional models are common today in our attempts to understand the motion of objects in the universe our God created. Heaven may not be physical in the way we experience locations and places, but it is very real, as are the angels and God who have no physical bodies.

So why pray to God “in heaven” if he is everywhere? Heaven is where God specially shows his glory and majesty. When the Bible said that God is in his Temple, it meant that he showed his glory and majesty there, not that he was more there than in other places. When it says that God is with his people in worship, it means he specially shows himself there as their Redeemer and Lord. We do not mean that he exists more in worship than any place else. Similarly he is not in heaven more than his is in every other place in his creation.

When we pray to “our Father in heaven” we focus on his majesty and glory.

Your attitude and thoughts when
praying to God are very important.

Prayer should never be done without a sincere and solemn awareness that you are speaking to the one who made all things, rules all things, and who loved you so much though you were unworthy that he made you his own dear child. When you pray, remember that he made everything you enjoy, have, and hope for. Keep in mind that he provided a costly substitute for your sins in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Think of the wonders of his sovereign majesty and holy glory.

These high thoughts should drive you to constant and confident prayer, the pouring out of your heart to your Heavenly Father.

Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 100: What doth the preface of the Lord’s Prayer teach us?

Answer: The preface of the Lord’s Prayer, which is, Our Father which art in heaven, teacheth us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a father, able and ready to help us; and that we should pray with and for others.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Index of Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism

An Unexpected Deliverance

Lesson 39: Romans 10:12-17

An Unexpected Deliverance

by Bob Burridge ©2011

The way things really are may not be the way we expect them to be. Sometimes our strong but wrong expectations make the reality rather unwelcome.

For example, people have always watched the stars move across the night sky slowly toward the west making a complete trip across the sky every night. The next night each star rises about 4 minutes earlier than it did the night before. By the time a year has gone by, the stars movements would have completely cycled around to the same positions in the sky they had the year before.

Even in the most ancient of times people noticed the way the moon seems to move around the earth once a month. They saw five other lights in the sky that seemed to wander around us on unique paths. They called them planets, which means “wanderers”.

To explain it all, including such things as eclipses, became confusing. The problem was that they had it all worked out in the wrong way. They assumed that the earth was stationary,and that all the objects in the sky revolved around the earth. The stars were imagined as imbedded on a large celestial sphere which wrapped around everything else. The moon, sun, and planets were each thought to be attached to clear crystalline spheres within that outer celestial shell. They assumed that each layer rotated around the earth, each a little larger than the one it surrounded.

The movements of the planets were not fitting that model so to make the system work they came to believe that the planets were rotating on clear disks around points on the rotating spheres. That still didn’t solve the problem so more circles had to be added. Still some observations just could not be made to fit. The scheme became very complex and hard to handle. By 1538, just a short time after the Reformation, the system required 79 interconnected spheres.

The wrong starting point produced a complex system that was very impressive and somewhat convincing. There was only one problem — it was not the way things really were.

When the answer came it was most unexpected and unwelcome. Polish astronomer Nicolas Copernicus found evidence that the sun was at the center of the system. It was the earth and the 5 planets that moved around the sun. Very soon after that Kepler added the idea that the planets orbited in ellipses, not perfect circles.

Many like Tycho Brahe rejected the idea on philosophical grounds. They insisted that it could not be true. Brahe thought that the Bible itself demanded that everything revolved around the earth. Of course the Bible teaches no such thing. The truth was not liked at all. The Copernican idea was condemned as heretical foolishness.

However, once the basic structure was settled, the measurements started to fit much better. Without all the spheres and circles orbiting points on other circles with off-set centers, things were much simpler. In time even the skeptics had to admit that the unwanted truth was unavoidable.

Of course we are still measuring the light from stars and distant galaxies trying to answer many remaining questions. But we are making better progress now that we have the right foundation.

The most important issue of all has also been commonly misunderstood. There is that question that concerns those who come under conviction of sin, “How can I be forgiven and become accepted by God forever?”

Our fallen nature will not see or admit the problem as it really is. Therefore wrong answers are assumed. Spiritually dead souls imagine all sorts of abilities they don’t have, and imagine rules that don’t exist. Even God’s word is distorted to protect an assumed scheme of things.

People often assume that, “God loves everybody and could never punish anyone eternally.” Some say, “We are all really good deep inside, we are all God’s children.” Some propose that, “if we live a good charitable life God would have to bless us.” So they adopt mystical religions, impressive rituals, self-denying lists of taboos, and think of all the good things they have done that should impress God.

Since they build their ideas upon a wrong foundation, things cannot fit together well. If we are all good deep inside, how can we explain why so many violent crimes are committed? Why do people tend to lie so easily and ignore responsibilities? How can they justify punishing certain actions and behaviors while still trying to respect all views as right? Supposedly rehabilitated criminals are set free only to commit more crimes. Morals tend to evaporate away as cultures progress from their beginnings leaving a seething pool of raging humanity. Abortions of humans are championed as a right to be protected while they make laws protecting unborn sea turtles. To cope with frustrations they cannot explain people turn to drugs, suicide, multiple marriages, unrestrained and unsafe sexual habits, alcohol-abuse, over-eating, gossip, addiction to TV and computer games, and many more conscience blinding activities to avoid facing reality.

God’s answer comes unexpectedly to the fallen human heart. The truth had been confused from the beginning. The prophets were hated and persecuted when they declared what the Creator revealed to them. When Jesus was born fulfilling the prophesies, the Jews stumbled at it because it did not fit their scheme of things, and the Gentiles hated it because it did not fit with their philosophy either.

But there it was — the great promise was fulfilled in a suffering Messiah. Fallen humans, both Jews and Gentiles, expected a formula for earning blessings and rewards, but God sent Jesus to die in his people’s place to give undeserved life to all he called to believe in him.

Today it is no different. The secularists imagine that no Savior is needed. Religionists imagine that the Savior did not finish the job, so they hope in altar calls, emotional decisions, mystical rituals, and good deeds.

The deliverance God provided was unexpected
both in Scope and Method

Romans 10:12-13, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’ “

God’s work of salvation was unexpectedly large in its scope. The Jewish teachers in Paul’s time expected a Messiah to bless them specially because they were descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had become proud and bigoted in their customs and heritage. They were sure that salvation required everybody to first convert to Judaism. They imagined a revolutionary Messiah who would overthrow Rome, humiliate the Gentiles, and give the Jews advantages over them. To make that idea fit the words of Scripture, the Rabbis had completely re-interpreted Moses and the Prophets. As Jesus said in Matthew 22:29 “Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.”

In Christ the difference between Jew and Gentile was being done away. The truth of the gospel brings salvation to all believers without distinction. There are no more national privileges in the Gospel. There is only one Lord, no other God, no other Sovereign by which anyone is saved.

Many Jews were highly offended at the challenge being made by the Christians against the distorted view they had of their special standing. When God began to bring in Gentiles without first requiring them to become Jews, it was too much for the Rabbis and their blinded followers. It stirred hatred and persecutions to save a system that was unraveling in the light of truth.

God’s work of salvation was also unexpected in its method. The abounding riches promised by God were to be for all those who called upon Him. This had always been God’s plan. The symbolic rites of Judaism were to teach what was to come. They were never a means of salvation.

The quote here came from the Old Testament in Joel 2:32, “And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved. …” Joel was announcing the judgment of the Lord upon unbelief, and the salvation of his true people.

The same verse was quoted by Peter at Pentecost as a clear reference to the Messiah’s Coming. Peter also gave the context that shows that Joel was writing about the era of the New Testament. Joel 2:28-29, “And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; …”

Calling upon the name of the Lord as it is mentioned in these verses is equivalent with identifying ourselves with his work of redeeming his people. It is an exercise of a true saving faith. It is not just calling out with specific words. It is an expression of heart-trust, asking for deliverance and expecting it to come as God promised it would. That is what it means to be a believer, one who calls out to the Lord trusting in his promise.

Paul used the same quote in 1 Corinthians 1:2, “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:”

There Paul substituted the name of Jesus for the word Jehovah in Joel. This calling out is a humbling confession that drives a person to the one true Deliverer.

Salvation is neither inherited nor earned as the Jews imagined. It came by what we call “vicarious atonement”. Atonement is the work of Jesus on the cross. There he removed the offense by paying the debt of sin for his people. It is vicarious because he does it in the sinner’s place as their representative.

Faith is the means God uses in applying our salvation. He implants confidence in the heart which then trusts in the true way of salvation as it is learned.

The Gospel was unexpected in both its scope and method. The free offer of the gospel to all nations had always been God’s promise. The Jewish leaders and teachers were wicked to have rejected what had been so plainly revealed. Therefore, Israel as a covenant nation was without excuse.

This unexpected deliverance
employed very ordinary means.

Romans 10:14-15, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!’ “

These obvious logical steps which God ordained involved his people in the process. If you call trustingly upon the Lord, you must first believe the truth of his gospel message. If you trust in him, you must first have heard about him. In order to hear the gospel, someone must have presented it to you. If you have been presented with it, some “proclaimer” must have been sent by God to deliver that message. That is how God planned that his work of redemption would be carried out.

The Greek word for “preacher” is the participle kaerus-sontos (κηρυσσοντος). It means one who “announces, tells, proclaims, publishes, makes something known”. This is not just the formal preaching that ordained ministers do. It includes that, but more broadly it is a promise to all those who tell the gospel truth to others. It includes those who translate and publish Bibles or write books, those who teach it in the worship services and Sunday Schools, those who take it to foreign countries and help establish new churches. It is also the work of us all as we talk with our children, friends, and co-workers. Every faithful believer becomes a link in this important chain.

The sending spoken of here is not only the commissioning and supporting of missionaries. This may be included, but unlike its common use in missions conferences, there is nothing in this verse that justifies limiting it to that one special application. God sends us all to bring his truth to others who have not yet understood it. By that proclaimed word, God gives people understanding, implants faith in them, and moves them to call out to Jesus showing the reality of the faith he put into their hearts. We who are sent on this mission by our Redeemer must obey, even though there will sometimes be strong opposition.

This was Israel’s job to declare the truth of God’s salvation to everyone, but she disobeyed, became arrogant and isolated. When the day came to expand to the Gentiles, the corrupted Rabbis became persecutors of those doing what they should have been doing all along.

When we explain the gospel truth to others, we speak with God’s authority because we are telling his words. Jesus said in Luke 10:16 “He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.”

This is a wonderful duty to which God calls his people. Isaiah 52:7 says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’ ”

Isaiah was speaking of those bringing news of release from captivity to Israel. That event represented the future coming of the promised Messiah to set his people free from sin. Those who were the enemies of God will be humbled by the undeniable power of the King of kings. The promise of deliverance, embraced or not, will be laid out before the whole world. A close reading of Isaiah showed that this included the extending of the truth about deliverance to the Gentiles too. Isaiah 52:10 says, “The LORD has made bare His holy arm In the eyes of all the nations; And all the ends of the earth shall see The salvation of our God.” This is how Paul uses the verse here.

Joy ought to be attached to bringing of the gospel message. The Jews who were angered by it, and found no joy in taking the truth to the Gentiles, showed that they were aliens from the true spiritual nation of God. Their feet were not on the mountains. They were propped up before them in selfish comfort.

As we take the gospel to those who are not already believers, we should never fear how they might treat us or what they will think of us. There will be those who oppose us whatever we do. It is far better to be the enemy of those who hate God, than to join his enemies and contribute to the confusion and silencing of the gospel.

Though God’s deliverance was not what they expected,
it was not a new idea.

Romans 10:16-17, “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘LORD, who has believed our report?’ So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

God had foretold not only the bringing in of the Gentiles, but also the apostasy of Israel. When the Messiah came in the way he did, it was to most of the Jews an unbelievable series of events. They had so confused the message with their expectations that it seemed unacceptable.

Isaiah 53 foretold the coming of a Suffering Messiah. That is the chapter from which Paul was quoting here, “Who has believed our report?…” (Isaiah 53:1). Literally it means, “who would have believed the thing reported?” Isaiah was speaking of the unexpectedness of the Suffering Messiah which is described by the prophet in the verses that followed.

To the Jews it was a stumbling block. They assumed that salvation would have to be earned by keeping the law, by doing good works. They wanted a Messiah who would destroy Rome, and set up the Jews on an earthly throne. They wanted the Gentiles to be looked down upon as an inferior race of people. The truth was not what they expected or wanted to hear.

Like those who rejected the ideas of Copernicus, the truth about the Messiah was not appealing. It went against what they assumed was true. It meant that we humans are not as innocent or as powerful as it seems. The false ideas of of the fallen mind do not quite fit the reality we see around us, but in that spiritually blinded estate, the lies seem more appealing.

The gospel exposes what humans really need, but deny. It dashes the idea that someone could be redeemed by earning it through their efforts and choices. It shows that God is rightfully the judge of all who remain in their sins. It puts us all on the same level: Jew and Gentile alike, rich and poor, intelligent and slow of mind. This is a difficult message until the heart is changed by the inward work of the Holy Spirit.

So God sends us out as his people to tell the good news, even to those who do not see it as good. We are duty bound to bring it to as many as we can. It is not our duty to make them believe. It is our duty to tell them the facts as clearly as we can. It is our duty to pray for the Spirit to gather in all God calls to himself by grace.

God gives us a simple message, one that confounds expectations, but transforms the soul.

What is your mission field? It is where God puts you every day. It is made up of the people around you who are confused about the truth, those who cry out for answers but have a wrong system into which to fit everything.

How will you tell the message to those people? You can bring it up in your daily conversations with others as a caring friend. You can invite someone to coffee, lunch, or dinner where you can help them understand what it is like to trust in God’s promises.

When you have the opportunity, tell them the truth, not just what they want to hear. Speak humbly as one who knows he is as equally fallen in Adam as they are. Explain how salvation is promised by God himself, to all who call upon the true Christ in true faith.

It is by such simple obedience that Christ builds his kingdom. The right growth of a church is not found in attracting people to fancy architecture or entertaining programs. It is not found in social activities designed to appeal to every unique category in society. As helpful as these things may be, the real work of Kingdom growth is the gathering of each one who believes into a loving family in the Lord. There we each do our best to help one another. We should speak out when we can to spread the message about this wonderful truth.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Back to the Index of Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans

A Plan for Prayer

A Plan for Prayer

by Bob Burridge ©2012
(watch the video)
(Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 98-99)

Have you ever heard someone say, “One of these days I really need to get organized”? You might hear that after a long search for a recipe in the kitchen, for a tool in the garage, or for lost phone numbers and addresses. Sometimes it’s when homework or projects pile up, or the to-do-list gets to where it could be bound into a book. It might even be when closets are so full you have to post warning signs about falling objects for the unwary who dare to open the doors too fast. We know that the only answer is to get organized with a plan to handle things better as they come along.

Planning sessions are absolutely necessary for our military and for a successful business. War is never something we want to rush into without careful organization and planning. Companies that make things but never plan how to market them end up with serious storage problems and bills that can’t be paid. Even our vacation trips have to be planned so we don’t end up running out of gasoline in some desolate area with no motels, stores, or gas stations.

We need practical planning for our spiritual lives too. God tells us what we ought to be doing to grow in Christ and as a spiritual family. The means of his grace become neglected if there’s no plan for using them. Prayer gets postponed or completely neglected if it isn’t figured into our busy schedules. Bibles tend to remain unread if there is no plan to read and study them. We tend to be late for worship or not show up at all, if preparations wait until the last minute. If we respond to people’s needs without thinking ahead we might offend those we want to help. If we live in the world without a thought for our duties as God’s people, we will probably effect it very little for the Kingdom of Christ. We become part of the problem instead of being part of the solution.

If the means of God’s grace are approached casually or in a disorderly manner they won’t benefit us or anyone else touched by our lives. When we have no plans, we generally accomplish little for our Lord’s glory.

Westminster Shorter Catechism questions 98-99 introduce us to the Lord’s Prayer. To make prayer an effective tool in our spiritual lives we need to follow the principles given to us in God’s word as we put together a good plan.

Question 98 asks, “What is prayer?” The answer is, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.”

Prayer is vitally important for every Christian.

Prayer is needed for our growth and for our effective participation in God’s kingdom. The prayerful Christian is quite a contrast to the insecurities and anxieties of the world around us. In Philippians 4:6 the Apostle Paul writes, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;”

Our prayers are not made to change God’s plan. When we pray we are engaged in that plan. God uses the prayers of his children as he moves in grace and judgment. He uses them to help the needy and to comfort the grieving. By our prayers God holds back the flood of evil, and enables us to do our work skillfully. He uses our prayers to strengthen our children and other loved ones, and to give us peace even in the midst of our tensions and anxieties.

It is amazing that a duty so important and so useful for God’s people requires such simple and ordinary skills. The simplest believer with no special experience or training, even one who doesn’t communicate well, can be extremely helpful to the church by simple diligence, fervency, and sincerity in calling out to God on behalf of his spiritual family.

We have this assurance in James 5:16, “… The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” Dr. Martin-Lloyd Jones has said, “Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.”

Prayer is that means given to us from our loving and sovereign God by which we grow in grace, and participate in the daily unfolding of Divine providence, and in the work of redemptive grace.

It helps to have a regular plan for when to pray.

When we get busy, things without a set time on our daily agenda usually get overlooked or forgotten. We schedule time for our favorite TV shows, regular shopping for groceries, plan to be free for important football or basketball games, make sure we stop work when it’s time for lunch, or when it’s time to go home at night. Yet the same people often never put things God commands on their schedules.

If something is not placed on our calendar or schedule, it usually doesn’t happen. Of course we should pray during the day whenever the desire or need arises in our hearts. However, it should also take place regularly as God’s word shows us by its many examples.

It’s good to begin and end each day with prayer. There are many biblical references to regular morning prayer. Among them are some classic passages.

King David wrote In Psalm 5:1-3, “Give ear to my words, O LORD, Consider my meditation. Give heed to the voice of my cry, My King and my God, For to You I will pray. My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; In the morning I will direct it to You, And I will look up.”

In Psalm 88:13, Haman the Ezrahite wrote, “But to You I have cried out, O LORD, And in the morning my prayer comes before You.”

There are also examples of God’s people praying in the evening as the day ends. Jesus and others in Scripture show us that it is proper and right to pray before we receive meals, or when we leave our homes to go to conduct business or to travel. Certainly we should pray throughout every day, as we think about God’s blessings, or as needs come to our attention.

The Bible reminds us of the importance of prayer as we read or study God’s word. Psalm 119:18 is a helpful guide as we open the Scriptures, “Open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law.”

It is important to pray as we prepare for worship, particularly as we ready ourselves to receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Paul warns us to examine ourselves before we come to partake of that Sacrament. In 1 Corinthians 11:28 he wrote, “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” Psalm 139 shows us that this examination begins with prayer, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.”

Set these regular times of prayer on your daily schedule. Be aware of your need to pray as God brings needs and blessings to mind.

We keep records and files of our important business transactions, of good recipes or collections. It is reasonable to do the same with our prayers. Keep a list. Pray from it daily. Review it often and praise God when you see him at work and requests are completed. When you set aside times for prayer let nothing interfere with those times.

It’s good to have a plan for what to say when you pray.

Question 99 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What rule hath God given for our direction in prayer?”
Answer: “The whole Word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called the Lord’s Prayer.”

The model prayer Jesus gave us in Matthew 6:9-13 is a valuable guide. The remaining questions of the Shorter Catechism are about each of the parts of that prayer. Jesus teaches us to pray that God’s name would be treated with the highest respect, that his kingship would be displayed in a greater way, that what he reveals as right would be done, that our daily needs will be provided, that we will be forgiven and kept from temptation and evil. We should praise God as Lord of his kingdom, the all-powerful God, as the one to whom glory is due forever.

In John 14:13 we are reminded that our prayers should be offered in the name of Christ, “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

This does not mean just adding the words “in Christ’s name” to our prayers. It means that we pray as those who trust in what Jesus Christ is, and who are resting their eternal hope upon all that he has done and promised to us. We pray as those clothed in his righteousness, not our own. Everyone resting in the work of Christ prays with that foundation, spoken or not. In fact, while it is a good practice to add those words, few New Testament prayers actually use those words. Yet all New Testament prayers are made through Christ. That is what it means.

Prayer must be made for only those things that are pleasing to God. The Apostle John explains in 1 John 5:14-15, “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”

Prayers for things God has not promised or approved have no foundation for confidence. This is why prayer must be informed by God’s word, and consistent with what it says is good. It should never be to get our personal wishes or ways. James 4:3 warns, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

If we pray according to God’s revealed will (for things that fit within his promises and which promote his glory) then our prayers will be answered. This is what we do when we pray in the name of Christ. We pray as those united with him by God’s grace, and who therefore love and desire his ways. So in John 14:14 Jesus could say, “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

So our regular prayers should begin with God’s wonder. Praise him for his glory, his promises, and the blessings he gives. Then consider your need by repenting of your sins and failure to honor him as he deserves. Return again to praise God for your salvation in Christ. That he died in your place, forgives your sins, and enables you in your battle to become more like him in thought, word and deed. Then bring your needs to him; for yourself, your family, friends, church, those you work with, and for the world and its leaders. Learn from God’s word how to pray from the examples and teachings God has preserved for us there.

Put the plan into practice.

It is even good to pray about praying. Ask God to help you do it better.

Once your plan for prayer is worked out, make a copy of the plan and put it where you can see it, where it can remind you about it. You might put it in your daily planner, post the plan on your refrigerator door, or on a bulletin board where you keep your jobs listed. However you remember things, put your prayer plan there.

Encourage one another to pray. Bring it up with your family and friends in conversations. Remember to be kind, supportive, and tactful if someone keeps forgetting to pray. The goal is to help one another improve, not to catch each other doing something wrong. Paul warns us in Galatians 6:1-2, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Prayer is a great responsibility and a wonderful privilege. If we expect to grow in Christ, we need the nourishment of all the means of grace. Prayer is one of those means. It is vitally important. If prayer is neglected, your whole spiritual life will suffer. We should not expect to grow spiritually without it.

Like a good meal that keeps your body healthy, your spirit grows healthy when you pray regularly. This is God’s promise to his children.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Index of Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism

Misdirected Zeal

Lesson 38: Romans 10:1-11

Misdirected Zeal

by Bob Burridge ©2011

People often take their religion very seriously. And why shouldn’t they? It’s a matter of eternity, and of their whole purpose in life.

People sometimes get excited about football games. They shout, jump around, paint their faces, or wear rubber cheese wedges on their heads. So we certainly should expect that some would have great zeal about issues of the soul.

A football game lasts just a short time and its over. Even a winning season is only for one year. But our eternal relationship with God is neither seasonal nor renegotiated now and then. A sports fan might feel a sense of deep loyalty to a school, or city, or to the team itself. How much more should be our fervent loyalty to our Creator! Some type of religious zeal is expected in all redeemed humans.

Of course not every football fan paints his face, wears strange hats, or waves a giant foam finger that says “We are number one”. People show their zeal in different ways according to their personalities. Religious zeal is that way too. Not all believers will express themselves in the same way, or be able to engage in the same types of service to our Redeemer. But in every true believer there is a zeal for Christ implanted into his heart by grace.

Not all religious zeal is good. James speaks of true Christianity as the “pure and undefiled religion” (James 1:27) This obviously stands in contrast with what Paul denounces as “self-imposed religion” (Colossians 2:23). Zeal for false religion both dishonors God and hurts those drawn along by irresponsible leaders.

In chapter 10 Paul continues the ideas he had just explained in Romans 9. The Jews had confused the outward form of God’s covenant with the reality it represented. Israel was chosen as God’s special covenant people to represent his election of some to salvation. However, they had come to think of themselves as better than the rest of the world. They looked down upon the Gentiles as less worthy. Some of them were behind the killing of the Messiah because he did not bring a message that specially exalted them as they expected.

God had not chosen the Israelites because of their special worth to begin with. He chose them who were unworthy so that he could demonstrate his attributes of undeserved mercy and grace. The Jews mistook God’s grace as if it was an earned reward. They imagined that their own efforts in keeping God’s law actually saved them. They thought that keeping the law sufficiently was still possible for fallen humans. She also thought that Israel was specially privileged eternally. Neither of these beliefs are consistent with what is revealed in Scripture.

Paul again makes his deep
concern for Israel very clear.

Romans 10:1, Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.

Paul was concerned about the Jews who were the outward representatives of God’s covenant. Theirs was a very special and important relationship. Tragically, their rebellion was confusing what God was demonstrating by choosing them. Paul warned them about the divine judgment from which they needed to be saved. He did not cater to their “felt needs” to win them over. He did not use focus groups to find out what they wanted to hear.
He boldly told them the dramatic truth about what God was about to do.
First, the Jews would no longer be outwardly blessed above all other nations. Second, God was about to redeem Gentiles into his church as equals in the Covenant Kingdom. By this it would be shown that effort and birthright are not the causes of redemption. It was a hard lesson, but a needed one.

Paul commended their zeal.

Romans 10:2, For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

Though zeal can be a good thing, it doesn’t excuse the error their zeal was promoting. He already had made it clear that they needed to be saved. Zeal for the wrong things, no matter how sincere, is not a virtue. The value of zeal is in its object, not in its words, or actions. If God’s truth and glory are our goals, then our zeal in promoting those things is wonderful. But if the goal is something that obscures God’s truth or misdirects his glory then it is evil.

Many of the Jews at that time lived zealously by strict rules and rabbinic traditions. They fervently defended their religious heritage. They sometimes even gave their lives for the cause. But they were zealous for things contrary to what God had revealed as true and good.

Some tried to become righteous by
a way God said could never succeed.

Romans 10:3, For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.

Their zealous belief that effort could remove their guilt was a terrible error. We are righteous when we are innocent with respect to all that God’s holiness demands. As far back as those early days in Eden God made it clear that fallen man needed to have his righteousness provided by God. The same was proven throughout history to Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and to Paul himself. Israel was missing that important point. She was seeking to establish her own righteousness by works, deeds, efforts, and an arrogant sense of privilege. This error produced human pride and bigotry. It redirected toward mere creatures, the glory due only to their Creator. In their blind self importance, they rejected and killed the Messiah himself. This was the final just cause that ended Israel’s place as the special Covenant People of God. It was time for what they prefigured to take place in the unfolding of history.

Jesus Christ is the center of the whole issue.

Romans 10:4, For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

But how is it that Christ is the “end of the law”? Did Jesus annul the law which God had given for all the ages past? Did he cancel the moral principles summarized in the 10 Commandments? Did he mean that now sin is not defined by God’s law anymore? Absolutely not!

Such an interpretation is contrary to the actual wording of this verse, and is absolutely impossible. Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”

The word for “to fulfill” is plaerisai (πληρωσαι). It means to bring something to its full measure. Jesus brought the law to the fullness of what it was meant to be all along. He did not abolish it by fulfilling it (as some say to excuse us from the law). Jesus was making a contrast — instead of abolishing or destroying, he was fulfilling.

Here in Romans 10:4 the word translated “end” is telos (τελος). It means the end product of something, the goal to which something aims.

Jesus brought the law to its fullness by his life and death. He lived to keep the law in our place so that we can be counted as righteous in him. He died to satisfy the demands of the law in our place. He redeems individuals to enable them understand his moral principles, to love the attitudes and actions that please their Creator, and to humbly strive by Christ’s power to keep his moral principles to the greatest extent possible.

He did not do away with what the law says is moral and good. The moral law shows what God defines as good. Certainly that eternal standard never changes. It is what marks out those redeemed as having been made holy. We are called to “be holy even as the Lord our God is Holy”.

The ceremonial laws of Old Israel showed that our sin deserves death. Certainly that is still true. The symbolic sacrifices of the Old Testament ceremonies foreshadowed Christ’s death. Once the final sacrifice for his people was completed on the Cross, the symbolic sacrifices would be out of place. However, what was required by divine justice remained. The sinner must die (Romans 6:23), or a perfect Redeemer must die in his place. The only way this justice could be satisfied is by a redeemer who was also the infinite God, the one who was offended. It must be a righteousness provided by God.

So, how then is Jesus the end of the law? Peter uses the same word to describe what Jesus did regarding our faith. 1 Peter 1:9, “… receiving the end of your faith — the salvation of your souls.”

The word “end” is sometime translated here as “outcome”. It is the same word translated as “end” in Romans 10:4 [telos (τελος)] with regard to the law. Certainly Jesus did not abolish faith, destroy it, or put an end to it. He brought faith to its complete goal in our lives, just as he did with the law. He provides our ability to do what faith leads up to, to reach its goal, to produce its fruit. In the same way, what Christ provides in us is that toward which the law aims us.

On the cross Jesus said, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) There Jesus used the same word again, telos (τελος). The verb form used there is tetelestai (τετελεσται) which carries the force of something “brought to its end, completed.” He accomplished, consummated, perfected the work he came to do. He did not annul or destroy all he had done. He brought it to its full end.

Jesus came to satisfy the demands of the law for his people, and to enable them to begin to live in a way that truly pleases God within the bounds of his moral principles revealed in the law. His children are only able to live those transformed lives by the Savior’s power at work in them.

That is why it says that Christ is the end of the law “for righteousness.” By the completed work of Jesus we are declared innocent of what God’s holiness forbids. The law shows us how much we need a Savior. It drives us to him in humble repentance. As Paul wrote in Galatians 3:24, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”

The law never had the power to remove guilt, or to produce obedience and holiness. Only Jesus could do that. So he brought the law to its goal, to its intended end, by making his people righteous. The whole point of the work of Christ was to make righteousness in us a reality. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul wrote, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Then in Philippians 3:8-9 he wrote, “… that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”

Paul tells us directly here that Jesus does not produce this righteousness in everyone. He came to secure it only in those who believe.

If left to keeping the law,
we would have no hope.

Romans 10:5, For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, “The man who does those things shall live by them.”

The Lord said through Moses in Leviticus 18:5, “You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.”

Certainly, if it was possible for any man to keep the law as God demanded, he would live. He would enjoy life in its fullest both now and forever in God’s holy presence. But Moses also showed that such living is impossible after the fall of Adam. Our attempts reveal our sin and inability. They ought to drive us in repentance before God to plead for his mercy. This is why the sacrifices were needed. They pointed ahead to Christ. The law serves the purpose of exposing our lostness as our efforts fail, and it points us to Christ who alone is our righteousness.

Even one single sin would justly condemn a person forever. As Paul said in Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death.” In Galatians 3:10 Paul again quotes the Old Testament saying, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’ ”

The Jews had ignored the part of God’s word about their inability, and about the unmerited mercies of God. They had turned the sacrifices into acts of merit, instead of confessions of need. They imagined that by zealously living by law they could make themselves right with God. The fallacy of their error is that it is the exact opposite of what God tells us in Scripture. They were striving for what was unattainable. In that zeal they offended God, and harmed themselves.

There is a way by which
we can become righteous.

Romans 10:6-10, But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, ” ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Paul bases these comments on another part of the writings of Moses. He uses the language of Deuteronomy 30 to show that our efforts are neither necessary nor helpful. They are not the cause of God’s mercies.

From Deuteronomy 30:12 he asks “Who will ascend into heaven?” Then Paul applies it to the fetching of the Messiah to come down to redeem us. Obviously he is demonstrating that no one needs to do this. No one would be able to do it.

Then he alludes to Deuteronomy 30:13 when he asks, “Who will descend into the abyss?” Again, applying this to fetching Christ, this time to bring him back from the dead. Once more it is obvious that this is impossible and unnecessary since it has been accomplished. It was not done by humans zealously securing for themselves what was needed. It was done by the grace of God alone through the provision of our Redeemer. Nothing remains for us to add, even if we could.

The righteousness which is based upon faith has a very different message. Paul then quotes from the next verse in that section of Deuteronomy 30. Verse 14 says, “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”

The salvation which is impossible for fallen man to seek and to obtain is already with us. It is the word of the Gospel which the Christians were spreading, the word of faith. Right after Paul wrote that the wages of sin is death, he added … “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23b)

No effort on our part is needed to move the hand of God. In fact such efforts deny grace which is the heart of the gospel itself. It is the hand of God that moves us. It is his work alone that redeems the unworthy completely apart from their own efforts.

The gospel is clearly imbedded in the law. It is the whole purpose of the law. The Good News is that God has done everything needed to redeem his people. He also infallibly brings about the change in each heart that brings his people to him through the work of Christ as Redeemer.

Romans 10:9 promises salvation to the person who confesses with his mouth the Lordship of Jesus. The word “confess” means to “agree with God about something”, “to admit that it is true.” The redeemed are those who admit that Jesus is Sovereign Lord over all. In him is all authority on heaven and on earth.

But confession that is of the mouth only is meaningless. So this statement is coupled with the next evidence of God’s work in us. We must believe in our hearts that Jesus was raised up from the dead as a work of God. The confession must reflect honest belief and trust. Jesus said in Matthew 12:34 “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

To say “I believe”, then to live as if what you professed is not really trusted, is offensive to God. It is nothing less than blatant hypocrisy. John Calvin explained that true belief is “… not a mere naked notion of the head.” Those who dare to confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ should seek to stand firmly upon that conviction even in uncomfortable situations, through persecutions, and in the midst of temptations.

The resurrection of Jesus was not in the primary act that redeemed us or pays for our sins. That was accomplished in full by our Savior’s suffering and death on the cross. The resurrection was the ultimate and comprehensive evidence that death, sin’s penalty, had been beaten. It showed that the dominion of sin and its curse from Eden was overcome. Rightly believing in the resurrection of Christ summarizes that the rest of the gospel is believed as well.

God’s promise cannot fail.

Romans 10:11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

Believers, will not be disappointed or put to shame. Paul is referencing the verse he used at the end of chapter 9. Isaiah 28:16, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily.”

There is a reason why Paul said believers will not be put to shame (or disappointed), while Isaiah says believers will not act hastily.

The word for “hastily” used by Isaiah is khush (חוש). It means to act quickly, to be hasty, or to be excited. The idea is that the one trusting in God’s promises will not hurry away as if fleeing in shame or disgrace. There will be no panicked retreat since they trust in God’s faithfulness.

When the Hebrew text of Isaiah was translated into Greek a couple hundred years before the New Testament was written, the word khush in Isaiah 9:16 was translated by the Greek word kataischuno (καταισχυνω), which means to be disappointed, or to be put to shame. That is why Paul used that Greek word in Romans 9:11.

The connection isn’t as obscure as it might seem at first. In God’s covenant in Deuteronomy 28 God warned Israel of all the curses he would pour out on them in the time when they would rebel against him. In verse 37 he warned particularly, “And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you.”

When Israel is finally rejected and the curses fall, the unbelieving nations will mock her saying, “where is her God?” The apostate Jewish nation will flee in shame. This is where the ideas of “shame” and “moving in haste” come together. Those who put their trust in God’s true promise in Christ will not have to be ashamed or flee in haste like those who receive God’s judgments. Shame follows apostasy. All those who by faith embrace Christ as their only true hope, will not be disappointed, or ashamed. They will be blessed and comforted by God in the judgment.

This is great news!
It is comforting and assuring.

Our salvation is not teetering upon our own ability to bring it about. Never be drawn away by the zeal of those who promote a different gospel than the one Paul has described here. Salvation is a free gift of God completely paid for by the work of Jesus Christ. There is nothing left undone that you must do to earn it. You cannot keep God’s law as a way to be made right with God. You cannot earn forgiveness simply by saying a right prayer or by making a personal decision. Those are good things to do. But the good you do is done because God has rescued you, not so that he will do so. You obey because God loved you eternally and transformed you through Christ. Obedience is not a formula to bring down God’s love.

Just as ancient Israel misrepresented God’s covenant to the world, so also the majority of those calling themselves Christians today present a warped message. The zeal of the theological liberals, of the cults, and of those who deny our total inability to earn God’s blessing by our own works, is the same futile effort that it was with Israel in the time of Jesus and Paul.

Those who blindly hold to those views are to be humbly pitied, and earnestly prayed for with sincere compassion. But they are not to be accommodated as if their zeal were a good thing in itself, and made up for changing the revealed truth of God. Satan too is zealous for his agenda, as are all his followers.

Paul displayed a right kind of zeal. He had compassion and concern, but without compromise of God’s truth. He told them the hard things because he cared for them. In the same way, we need to call neighbors, friends, and family to the truth of the gospel of Christ. It only offends those who will not turn and believe. But in those called of God, regenerating grace will produce righteousness in Christ and life eternal.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Back to the Index of Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Beware of Morality Fatigue

Beware of Morality Fatigue

by Bob Burridge ©2012

When exposed to an odor for a long time olfactory fatigue sets in, you don’t sense it any more. This is why people often fail to realize they have odor problems in their homes. People living by airports or busy highways become so used to the noise that they don’t even notice it.

There is also a morality fatigue that desensitizes us to things that are not honoring to our God. We become comfortable with certain sins little by little. They can become accepted “background noise”. It’s as if we can’t “smell them” anymore.

God doesn’t leave us on our own devices to take inventory of our moral condition. Regular and prayerful Bible study shines light on our dark places. The work of the Holy Spirit shows us how the word applies to our lives. He convicts us of things we would overlook. He stirs us to have a deeper concern for our walk with Christ. In Psalm 139:23-24 David asked God to help him take inventory of his heart. He prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.”

The Lord’s Supper

The Lord’s Supper

by Bob Burridge ©2011
(Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 96-97)
(watch our video & see Westminster Shorter Catechism Q96-97)
Another article: “When Should the Lord’s Supper be Celebrated?

Taking part in the Lord’s Supper is a high privilege given by God to his children. By it God blesses them, and by it they declare how our Creator redeemed his people out of the fallen human race. The practice of this important Sacrament has often been confused. It has become divorced from the covenant of which it is a part. Some attribute magical powers to the elements used. Others reduce it to little more than an object lesson. It is worth our time and effort to restore this part of worship to what God ordained it to be.

The Lord’s Supper is a Sacrament.

Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 96, “What is the Lord’s Supper?”
Answer: The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ’s appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace.

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:I. Our Lord Jesus, in the night wherein he was betrayed, instituted the sacrament of his body and blood, called the Lord’s Supper, to be observed in his church, unto the end of the world, for the perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death; the sealing all benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him, their further engagement in and to all duties which they owe unto him; and, to be a bond and pledge of their communion with him, and with each other, as members of his mystical body.

The Lord’s Supper was directly instituted by Jesus Christ as a continuing practice for the church during this era between his death and the final Judgment (Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:19-20, and 1 Corinthians 11:23-25). This has been the universal understanding and practice of Bible-based churches.

It is the covenant meal which fulfills the promises signified in the feast of Passover. Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper while he partook of the Passover meal with his disciples on the night before his own sacrifice on the cross. He identified the bread as his body which was to be crucified on the cross the next day for the sins of his people. He also explained that the cup of wine represented the blood of the covenant in his own blood which was soon to be shed for them. Jesus is called “our Passover” (1 Corinthians 5:7), and “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29).

The Mosaic Passover was prophetic in nature. The New Testament sacrament is not in every way the same as Passover. It fulfills what the covenant meal prefigured. Not all the particulars of it should be expected to apply to the fulfillment. Many of the details had to do with things that symbolized the coming of the Messiah as our sin bearer. Only what is specified by our Lord for the church applies to the Lord’s Supper. For example, we no longer celebrate this covenant meal in our own homes led by the head of the family unit just once each year. We don’t sacrifice a lamb. There is a requirement that all who partake now must discern the body of Christ, etc.

As a Sacrament, the Lord’s Supper is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. It is a means by which true believers grow spiritually and are nourished when the elements are received in faith, and in the way God has specified in his covenant promises.

The benefits are not attached to the elements themselves apart from their proper use. When we rightly partake of this covenant meal we both receive God’s promised blessings and attest to our common commitments as believers and as members of Christ’s body, the church.

By partaking of the elements we come into union with Christ as a united covenant people. For this reason the Lord’s Supper is often called “Communion”.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.”

It is not an offering up of Christ as a sacrifice.

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:II. In this sacrament, Christ is not offered up to his Father; nor any real sacrifice made at all, for remission of sins of the quick or dead; but only a commemoration of that one offering up of himself, by himself, upon the cross, once for all: and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God, for the same: so that the popish sacrifice of the mass (as they call it) is most abominably injurious to Christ’s one, only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of his elect.

A common confusion arises from the Roman Catholic understanding of the Lord’s Supper as the “Mass”. Contrary to that teaching, the Bible does not present this sacrament as a re-sacrificing of Jesus Christ. His once-for-all sacrifice is not to be repeated ritually. It is a sacramental practice to commemorate what has already been accomplished, and to seal its blessings upon proper recipients.

Its Appointed Administration

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:III. The Lord Jesus hath, in this ordinance, appointed his ministers to declare his word of institution to the people; to pray, and bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby to set them apart from a common to an holy use; and to take and break the bread, to take the cup, and (they communicating also themselves) to give both to the communicants; but to none who are not then present in the congregation.
IV. Private masses, or receiving this sacrament by a priest, or any other, alone; as likewise, the denial of the cup to the people, worshiping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them about, for adoration, and the reserving them for any pretended religious use; are all contrary to the nature of this sacrament, and to the institution of Christ.

The sacraments are to be administered only by those given the authority to do so by ordination to serve as shepherds of the people. The Elders are held responsible in Scripture for the right administration of all the elements of worship. They are the only ones recognized by God’s word to properly represent the gathered congregation before God in its times of convocational worship. Among the Elders, only those examined for their thorough understanding of the Biblical issues involved should lead in the Lord’s Supper. We commonly designate such Elders as Pastors or Teaching Elders. Most churches require them to complete seminary level training.

According to the institution given both by our Lord and the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, certain things should always be present in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Prayer should be offered. The word of God is to be expounded. The elements are to be clearly set apart for this special use. The words of Jesus (usually those in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26) are recited. The elements are distributed to and partaken of by the members of Christ’s true church.

Since this is a communion of the church as a body of Christ, and since it is to be accompanied by the teaching of the word and the words of Christ, this sacrament should not be administered outside the called worship of the church under the oversight of its Elders. It should never be distributed later to those not present in the worship time.

The practice of taking the Lord’s Supper to people in private settings, or the administering of it to only the bride and groom at weddings, are in direct violation of this biblical principle. It is therefore contrary to the teachings of the Westminster Confession of Faith and most importantly to the word of God in Scripture. This practice reflects either a superstitious view of the elements as if they have some power or quality infused into them, or a diminishing of their sacramental use as if they are mere object lessons, endearing ceremonial trappings, or signs, but not seals, of God’s Covenant of Grace.

The administration of the Lord’s Supper to shut-ins, or to those unable for physical reasons to attend the convocations of the church, should always include all the biblical elements of the Sacrament. To honor God’s word Pastors and the Elders of the church will sometimes call a worship time at the bedside of those who are disabled. The word is taught, other believers are present as a congregation, and all the things required for its rightful administration are included in the presence of those partaking. The details of this are far beyond the scope if this present lesson, and get into the portions of the Bible that teach about those God calls to minister to his people during this present era.

Other abuses of this sacrament such as limiting the cup to only those administering it, or the carrying around or venerating of the elements, are pure inventions of men and are contrary to the biblical practice instituted by our Lord and reported by the Apostles in Scripture. They are usually attached because of an improper understanding of how the elements of bread and wine convey the blessings promised in the Covenant.

The outward elements remain
unchanged in substance and nature

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:V. The outward elements in this sacrament, duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have such relation to him crucified, as that, truly, yet sacramentally only, they are sometimes called by the name of the things they represent, to wit, the body and blood of Christ; albeit, in substance and nature, they still remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before.
VI. That doctrine which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine, into the substance of Christ’s body and blood (commonly called transubstantiation) by consecration of a priest, or by any other way, is repugnant, not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense, and reason; overthroweth the nature of the sacrament, and hath been, and is, the cause of manifold superstitions; yea, of gross idolatries.
VII. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive, and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.

The physical elements of a Sacrament convey blessings due to the promise attached to them, rather than by any power or change in the actual elements themselves. They ought to be rightly received and administered, while leaving the blessing part to God who alone is the author of our every spiritual benefit.

When Jesus administered the bread and wine at his last Passover supper with his apostles, he explained that the bread was his body and the wine was the new covenant in his blood. There could have been no confusion in the minds of those present. In that context, nothing indicates that he was speaking of a physical transformation which would mean that what he called bread was no longer bread as they understood it, nor that what he gave them as wine was anything other than what God’s laws of Passover required it to be. There is nothing to make us expect that his command to continue the sacrament implied that the elements would be any different after his resurrection.

The medieval doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that the whole substance of the bread is changed into the literal physical body of Jesus, and that the wine is changed in substance into the literal blood of Jesus. This view protects itself from the obvious objections by saying that they continue to have the outward characteristics of bread and wine, but they are no longer what they appear to be.

This view was taken up by the Roman church. It led to superstitions about the power and efficacy of the elements themselves. The bread is sometimes paraded around invoking followers to worship it and to expect actual blessings to flow from its mere presence. Extreme measures have been taken to keep the leftovers of the consecrated bread or wine from being treated with disrespect, since they are believed to remain the body and blood of Jesus even outside the context of the administration of the sacrament. The administration of the elements have been guarded so that no crumbs of the sacred body or drops of our Savior’s true blood would fall accidentally. A special wafer was designed to replace the bread so that it would be laid intact into the mouth of the participant and could not produce crumbs.

The Lutheran view was a modified form of the Roman doctrine. Their view is often called consubstantiation. Though they also believed that in consecration the actual physical body and blood of our Lord became present in, with, and under the elements, nevertheless the real bread and wine remain also.

Most of the confusion which led to these extreme positions has to do with a basic misunderstanding of the concept of the sacramental relationship which unites the outward forms with that which they represent. Those who hold to those views put a very unnatural reading upon the words of Jesus when he said, “this is my body”. Throughout Scripture figures of speech are used where the thing representing something is spoken of in terms of the thing it represents. Though Jesus calls his disciples the light of the world and the salt of the earth, they are not transformed into photons or Sodium Chloride crystals. There are many classical discussions of this issue and we will not try to reproduce all the details of the arguments here.

In response to these abuses some have taken a view often called Memorialism. It reduces the entire Sacrament to an object lesson denying that the body and blood of Christ are received in any real sense at all.

The position of the Reformed churches differs from these other schools of theology. The classic Reformed symbols indicate that there is a real presence of Christ in the elements, but it is not a physical presence. By virtue of God’s promise we partake of Christ’s body and blood spiritually, receiving the benefits of his covenantal presence when those rightly partaking trust in God’s assurance that blessing will accompany this means of grace.

Unworthy Partakers

Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 97: What is required for the worthy receiving of the Lord’s Supper?
Answer: It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves.

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:VIII. Although ignorant and wicked men receive the outward elements in this sacrament; yet, they receive not the thing signified thereby; but, by their unworthy coming thereunto, are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, to their own damnation. Wherefore, all ignorant and ungodly persons, as they are unfit to enjoy communion with him, so are they unworthy of the Lord’s table; and cannot, without great sin against Christ, while they remain such, partake of these holy mysteries, or be admitted thereunto.

Those who receive the elements of the Lord’s Supper in ignorance or with a wicked intent cannot receive the blessing promised. God looks upon the heart and blesses only those who come as he specifies in his word.

Paul carefully instructed the church at Corinth about the right reception of the Lord’s Supper. In 1 Corinthians 11 he wrote,

23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
31 For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
32 But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
33 Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
34 But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.

Those who receive the elements without faith in, or awareness of what they represent, and of the church gathered as the body of Christ, are unworthy receivers. They bring condemnation upon themselves rather than blessing. For this reason most Reformed churches require communicants to be qualified by the examination of the Elders in order to be admitted to the Lord’s table. Children and new members must show that they are acting with understanding and a credible faith in Christ before they are welcomed to this Sacrament.

Some admit all baptized children on the basis of their covenantal union in the body of Christ. The admitting of children is called Paedo-Communion. Study committees in most Reformed bodies have not been convinced by the arguments offered to support this concept, but it is a worthy issue for study, and challenges us to improve our understanding of the Sacraments and of their Covenant nature.

The many detailed practices of the ancient celebration of the Passover are not brought over into the New Testament era without change. Most believe that the caution Paul presents in 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 shows one of the ways in which the prefiguring of the Lord’s Supper changed as it came into its fulfilled form.

Since the Lord’s Supper is a means by which God extends his work of grace in the believer, those admitted to the Sacrament should not abstain from it. It is a good time for confessing sin and renewing commitments to the Lord. The idea that one must first have made full restitution for the effects of all his sins is neither biblical nor reasonable. Passages relating to the Levitical sacrificial system and its demands for outward purity should not be transposed into the New Testament era in a way that keeps a truly repentant believer from taking advantage of this important means of grace.

There are many issues which have engaged the church in the study of this Sacrament. Some say fermented wine should always be used, while others insist on the use of unfermented grape juice. Some demand that the bread be unleavened, while others prefer the ordinary leavened bread in common use. Some receive the elements while remaining seated as a congregation. Others come to the front of the church and kneel while receiving it. Some eat and drink each element as it is received while others wait until all have been served then partake as a congregation. Some administer the sacrament every Sunday, others monthly, some quarterly.

These are fascinating areas of discussion and have been used by God to provoke his people into studies that explore the depths of his word for answers. Great caution should be exercised regarding these differences lest things not directly addressed in God’s word should be used by the enemy of our faith to divide us and derail our joint efforts to preserve true biblical worship, individual spiritual maturity, and the declaration of the gospel to the world. The members of local churches should submit to the judgment of the Elders of the church in such matters as these, unless they find sound biblical cause to do otherwise.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Index of Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism

No Points for Effort

Lesson 37: Romans 9:24-33

No Points for Effort

by Bob Burridge ©2011

We like to see people put forth effort in their lives to accomplish noble goals, but effort alone is no virtue. People can be very diligent in accomplishing horrible things. Evil people in history such as Adolph Hitler, the heretic Pelagius, Communist Vladimir Lenin, and others were tirelessly busy and totally committed to things they sincerely believed in. However, we don’t commend them for their efforts. They set evil goals and used means that dishonored God. No godly person thinks of Hitler’s failed attempt at genocide and says, “Well, at least he tired.” Doing a wicked thing is not commended simply because there was a strong effort put forth.

In the not-so-distant past doctors thought they could cure certain diseases by cutting a patient to let out large amounts of blood. Since a fever reflects blood temperature, the process appeared to work. There was a problem though, the patients often died from the loss of blood, infections, or a reduced ability of the body to fight of the disease that was causing the fever. No one today would applaud a doctor’s efforts if he went back to the practice of bleeding his patients. We wouldn’t say, “Well at least he has good intentions, and he tries so hard!” Wrong practices are not justified simply because there is a good goal in mind.

On an even higher scale, the same is true of righteousness. The world’s religions have many varied ideas about how to become “right with God.” Most of them have the same common element, human effort. For some that effort is directed toward doing charitable works and good deeds. Some turn to magical incantations and mystical ceremonies. Others make great personal sacrifices and endure self-inflicted pain. Some trust in the decisions they make or in certain prayers they recite. They all make the same mistake according to what God tells us in his word. Biblically, our efforts, even good efforts, cannot be the cause of our salvation. No one is able to do good until God produces new life in them. Good efforts are the effect of God already making a person right by grace. At the root, each of these false religions makes man out to be god over his own soul. They see human effort as what causes God to treat some with mercy and others with wrath.

That is directly against what we have seen so far in our study of Romans. God grants no points for effort!

In this 9th chapter Paul used Old Testament Scripture to prove directly that we are not saved by any desire of our own hearts, or by the work of our hands. We are chosen for eternal life by God’s eternal good pleasure alone. In verse 11 he wrote about God’s dealing with the sons of Isaac. He chose to redeem only one of them “… that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls.”

Paul then summarized his point in verse 18, “Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.”

Here Paul is dealing with the objections of ancient Israel. They mistook their own efforts as the cause of God’s blessing. They had added complex details and customs to the law of God. Their man-made additions made them reject the promise of a Messiah who would satisfy justice for their guilt by his suffering in their place.

They came to rely upon their own Jewishness instead of resting in God’s provision of grace. They looked down upon the Gentiles, and took pride in their own efforts. However, God’s word says that all our efforts are worthless unless they are the fruit of a redeemed heart. The prophet said in Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags …”

The prophets had warned that God would judge the nation for her corruption of the truth. Jesus said that God’s judgment would fall upon Israel while the generation he spoke to was still alive. When the Jewish Rabbi we know as the Apostle Paul become a follower of Christ, he also warned the Jews that their special time of blessing was about over.

God’s plan had not failed. Universal salvation of the Jews was never his plan. Just as he only made one of Abraham’s sons the heir of the promise, and only one of his Grandsons, it was only the chosen of Israel who were the true sons of God’s promise.

The time had come when God was not going to choose his people from Israel alone. Here our study continues in Romans 9:25-33.

God was going to add non-Jews to his covenant family!

Romans 9:25-26, “As He says also in Hosea: ‘I will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,” There they shall be called sons of the living God.’ “

Again Paul builds his case by quoting from the Bible. This is his consistent way of reasoning: If it can be shown that God said it, that settles it. So he turned to the book of the prophet Hosea to show that he was not introducing a new idea.

Verse 25 is taken from Hosea 2:23 “… I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; Then I will say to those who were not My people, ‘ You are My people!’ And they shall say, ‘You are my God!’ ”

Verse 26 is from Hosea 1:10, “… where it was said to them, ‘ You are not My people,’ There it shall be said to them, ‘ You are sons of the living God.’ ”

Hosea wrote to warn the Northern Kingdom of Israel about her unfaithfulness to God. She had compromised with unbelief and made alliances with heathen nations. But her strength was outward only. Inwardly she was weak and unfaithful. She had ignored the advice of God’s prophets. Most had abandoned the truth, so God was going to scatter them. He would let them be taken captive, led off into a heathen nation.

The life of Hosea teaches a memorable lesson that has taught us for thousands of years. God told this man to marry a prostitute by the name of Gomer. By her he had 3 children whom God named.

First he had a son and named him Jezreel [Yiz-re-EL (יזרעאל)]. Though Yiz-re-EL sounds similar to “Israel”, it is spelled very differently in Hebrew. The name means “scattered by God” in the sense of casting out seeds when planting so that they are spread out on the field. God said he would, “bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.” (Hosea 1:4)

Next he had a daughter whom God told him to name Lo-Ruhamah [Lo Ru-KHA-mah (לא רחמה)], which means “no compassion”. God said, “for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel …”

Then he had another son. God told him to name this son Lo-Ammi [Lo Am-MI (לא עמי)]– which means “not my people. And God said, “for you are not My people and I will not be your God.”

The names represented God’s relationship with his unfaithful nation. Though the Israelis were physical descendents of Abraham, members of his visible covenant family, they were to be scattered without compassion, and no longer to be called God’s people.

Then Hosea was told to seek a woman who had committed adultery. This illustrated how Israel had left her God and committed spiritual adultery. To show God’s mercy in saving some from among the unworthy and apostate nation, Hosea was told to go find this woman, redeem her with a price, and to care for her. The names of his children were used to illustrate God’s grace toward those he redeems. Instead of Lo-Ammi (not my people), he was to say, Ammi (my people). In stead of Lo-Ruhamah (no compassion), he was to say, Ruhamah (compassion).

Throughout the record in Scripture, we see that God divides mankind into categories. There are two main ways of making that division. First, some become members outwardly in God’s Covenant Family, and others do not. Before the time of the Apostles that visible church was the nation of Israel. In the time of the Apostles it took on the form of the Christian Church. The members of that Covenant Family are those out of all of fallen mankind who make a commitment to submit to God’s ways and teachings.

Within that outward form of the church there is a more important division of mankind. Some in this visible form of the church are also redeemed from their guilt and sin, and some are not. The redeemed are those who were eternally chosen by grace alone. We call the whole group of God’s elect the Invisible Church. These are the vessels of mercy chosen to display the glories of Christ (Romans 9:23). God elected them based upon his own pleasure, not based upon their own efforts.

Those left in their sin are justly condemned. It is what we all deserve. They are forever aliens from the true spiritual family of God. They are what Paul called God’s Vessels of Wrath in the last section of this chapter (9:22). They display God’s power and patience in administering justice in his good time.

Hosea wrote to the unfaithful tribes of Israel who had abandoned God’s covenant. This is why this portion of Hosea was so helpful to Paul in making his point. God’s promise to redeem was only made with the remnant he eternally planned to be his own. Salvation is not by effort or inherited advantage, it is by Sovereign Grace alone. Therefore God may bring in Jews who had abandoned the outward form of the church, and he could save Gentiles as well.

Peter used these verses form Hosea similarly in 1 Peter 2:9-10, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”

God had promised to adopt the unworthy into His Kingdom. To make this election by sovereign grace absolutely clear, the Lord was about to build his church from among the Gentiles, those who were so despised and looked down upon by the Jews. Paul also explained this in Ephesians 2:12-13, “that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

God promised to save only a remnant of Israel.

Romans 9:27-29, “Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, The remnant will be saved. For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, Because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.’ And as Isaiah said before: ‘Unless the LORD of Sabaoth had left us a seed, We would have become like Sodom, And we would have been made like Gomorrah.’ ”

Paul again turns to the then existing books of the Bible, this time to the Prophet Isaiah. This section of Romans is a perfect lesson in using God’s written word as its own interpreter. In just these 33 verses, Paul quotes from the Old Testament 34 times. He makes eight Old Testament references in just these last nine verses.

The Bible is clear. God’s salvation is only promised to a remnant of those who claim to be his people. Isaiah 10:20-23, “And it shall come to pass in that day That the remnant of Israel, And such as have escaped of the house of Jacob, Will never again depend on him who defeated them, But will depend on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, To the Mighty God. For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, A remnant of them will return; The destruction decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord GOD of hosts Will make a determined end In the midst of all the land.”

The great nation of Israel was going to be taken away by Assyrian invasion as a judgment of God. There, they will be reduced to a mere remnant. Only that remnant will return to the land in faith. It will be only those who “depend on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.” (Isaiah 10:20)

Clearly Paul and Isaiah did not see this as a promise to just a remnant of outward National Israel. The remnant was made up of those changed inwardly by grace and given a true faith. Since only a remnant is returned in faith, the majority of the outward church remained corrupt, even into the time when Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem hundreds of years after the delivering of Isaiah’s prophesies.

Those who take comfort in the size of their church or in the large numbers who seem to agree should take heed. God does not bless by majorities. He blesses his remnant rescued by grace alone. Popular trends in the churches through all the ages are never a good test of what is pleasing to God. Our trends must be measured by comparison with the honestly and carefully studied word of Scripture.

What of those who are not called by God’s grace to be his remnant? The Lord will quickly, surely, execute His Word. His judgment falls quickly. Paul again turns to the Scriptures for his support. Isaiah 1:9, “Unless the LORD of hosts Had left to us a very small remnant, We would have become like Sodom, We would have been made like Gomorrah.”

Aside from his mercy, the just end of every human is like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities destroyed in terrifying judgment for their sin and unbelief.

On the other hand, God’s true Israel will always be delivered. Even though it will be only a remnant from the visible body of professing believers.

Finally, Paul exposes the error
of putting hope in our own efforts.

Romans 9:30-33, “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’ “

“What is this?” the Jews were asking. “Has God given salvation to the unworthy Gentiles?” That’s exactly what he has done. “But, …” they might object, “… they weren’t even pursuing righteousness — and we were!”

So then, why did the Jews not attain salvation since they tried so hard? Paul’s answer hits right at the heart of all false religion, they thought they deserved it. They had so corrupted what Moses said, that they thought the law was a means of salvation. They thought that because they were so zealous in their religion, God would save them. But God gives no points for effort.

No human works are free from corruption. Sin distorts our every goal. Even our best efforts and intentions condemn us all the more as they are done arrogantly for our own glory rather than for the glory of our Creator.

In Galatians 2:21, Paul made it clear that if it was possible to be made right with God by means of our efforts or by keeping the law, then the death of the Messiah would have been unnecessary. “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

Why send God the Son to suffer and to endure a cruel unjust death, if men were able to earn salvation by their deeds? if it could simply be deserved?

In Scripture Jesus is the Rock, the cornerstone of truth, and foundation of all hope. Upon the solid foundation of his holy life and atoning death his people stand with confidence that their guilt is removed. He is the cornerstone laid down first by the Master builder as a guide to how the rest of the building is to be oriented and constructed. As is says in Isaiah 28:16 “therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.”

Ancient Israel did not like the shape of the building that Christ’s truth marked out. She abused the law thinking it was a way of salvation. God gave his statutes to humble his people to repentance, and to instil in them a trust in his provisions for the soul. His law was the way those redeemed by grace show their gratitude. It was never given as a means of removing sin or earning salvation by our own efforts.

The suffering Messiah exposed that false religion of works. They looked for a different kind of Messiah, a Jewish revolutionary. The cornerstone became for the Jews a stumbling stone that offended them. Isaiah 8:14, “He will be as a sanctuary, But a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense To both the houses of Israel, As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

Peter used this same Old Testament symbolism when he wrote 1 Peter 2:8, ” ‘A stone of stumbling And a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.” In the next verses Peter used the reference from Hosea just as Paul did.

Dr. Haldane says, “A free salvation becomes an offense to men on account of their pride.” They will not admit their corruption due to sin, their guilt, their inability to merit God’s favor. They will not accept a God who is sovereign and just.

Israel in her unbelief stumbled at this. As a nation there was no evidence of a true faith. It exposed the spiritual aliens who lived among the true people of God. They who believe they can earn divine favor without the enablement of their Creator may take on the name of the Savior, but they are not part of the remnant redeemed by grace.

God shattered any glimmer of pride in the Israelite’s heart. He put faith into the hearts of the Gentiles considered by the Jews to be savage, pagan, and cursed. What grander demonstration of Sovereign Grace could be imagined? God saves sinners, not those who think they have earned the right to be called Son’s of God. The Gentiles had put forth no effort to come to Christ, or to discover God’s truth. Yet by grace alone they were grafted into the vine.

The effort we put forth in our lives is not done to merit God’s forgiveness. The cause of our alienation from him is not removed by good things we do or promise. Our efforts are the evidences of a forgiveness already granted. We strive toward holiness by the power of Christ at work in us, not to get him to work in us. By our obedience to God we express gratitude for blessings we know we do not deserve and could never earn.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

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