Category Archives: Reformed Theology

One Standard, One Verdict

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One Standard, One Verdict

Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans
by Bob Burridge ©2011

Lesson 14: Romans 3:9-20

There have always been news stories about scandals, accusations, and excuses for doing wrong things. Through it all, it is important that we have a moral sense of direction.

It is dangerous if we set up a false standard, or think that some people should be treated specially. Our fallen nature is easily tempted to classify people either as those who do wrong, or as those who don’t. That’s not what God’s word tells us about the way things really are.

There is a standard that applies equally to everyone. There is a court to which we all answer, God’s court. No tricky wording will get around the moral principles of that court. There is no excuse found in pointing out the wrongs of others who are just as guilty as we are. It is no excuse to say that what we have done is just our own business and shouldn’t concern anyone else. There can be no dismissing of our wrongs as if no real harm has been done. People try to point out their good intentions as if that excuses them from wrong doings. There is no excuse in claiming that the wrong we did was done because we didn’t know where else to turn.

The Jews in the time of Jesus, and at the time Paul’s letter to the Romans was written, had imagined that they were not going to answer to the same judgment as the rest of humanity. They thought they would be exempt because of the special blessings God gave them. They found it easy to take sin lightly and to make up excuses for bending God’s law. Like many today, they saw their own importance, affiliations or goals as being so good that they did not think they would be judged by the same standards as others.

Excuses, excuses — we humans are so quick to come up with excuses! As we saw in Romans 2:15, fallen humanity has two sets of excuses: either people try to excuse what they have done or minimize it as if it was not really all that bad, or they blame others for the whole situation and make themselves out to be the victims.

Does that sound familiar? It is the pattern we see every day, and maybe see in ourselves at times too. Accountability has become a relative thing. Moral principles have been detached from their anchors and now float, bobbling around in the open sea of confusion. Instead of being stationary markers for the channel, they have become dangerous obstacles people try to maneuver around to get where they want to go.

We need to re-attach these markers to the anchor that rests at the bottom of the sea. We need to return the moral principles we live by, to where they mark out the right course. There is no other way to avoid the hidden dangers that threaten to rip us apart as we wander out of the safe channel.

Our wiggling to escape accountability confirms what God’s word says about us. The Bible tells us that we are all Morally Depraved by our fall into sin. Depravity is so extensive that all humans have no hope based upon their own abilities. We are driven by God’s grace to the deliverance that is ours only in Jesus Christ. In the book of Romans, Paul shows us the truth that alone can set us free.

Romans 3:9-20 shows us what is wrong so we can deal with it in the right way.

First, the Apostle reminds us that no one can claim
to be better than any one else.

Romans 3:9, “What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.”

This has been Paul’s theme in the first part of this epistle. The Jews had many advantages, but were not superior to others nor exempt from judgment. All are under sin and stand beneath its banner declaring them condemned as guilty before God. Just how depraved is man in his fallen condition? How morally disabled is he?

Paul takes us to the Scriptures to examine what God has said about us.

Romans 3:10-11, “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.’ “

We call this the doctrine of “Total Depravity“. It means that when Adam sinned, all of mankind became guilty of sin and were separated from God. This separation left man’s nature corrupted to where it is unable to please God. This corruption even effects man’s understanding of his own nature as it really is.

Sometimes people think of “Calvinism” when they hear about Total Depravity. However, this idea was not an invention of John Calvin. It was not even an invention of St. Augustine long before him. It is a doctrine evident in all of God’s word from beginning to end.

So to support this truth, Paul turned to the books of Scripture they had in their day. Psalm 14:1-2 says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.” (see also Psalm 53:1-2)

These passages teach us that no one is righteous in the eyes of God. Paul modified the wording of Psalm 14 not to change the meaning but to fit it into the Greek language his readers spoke. Clearly no one is excluded, neither Gentiles nor Jews. Not one person can say that as God see it, he has lived righteously.

No one understands things as they truly are. This does not mean we cannot understand math formulas or learn definitions of words. It means that we are all alienated from God, and cannot possible see truth truly. We are bound to make ourselves seem better and more in control than we are, and to make God seem less good, less sovereign, and less consistent than he really is.

No one seeks the true God revealed in Scripture. If we struggle to distort the truth about God, the God we seek will not be the true God. Fallen man loves to worship, but not as God prescribes, nor to worship the God who really is. He wants a God who will not judge him fairly for what he deserves, a God who will let him have his forbidden pleasures, and salvation too, a God who will measure up to his mistaken view of all the rest of reality.

This depravity is total and universal. It includes all humans and touches every part of each one. So, how does this depravity effect our behavior?

Paul offers more support from the Scriptures.

Romans 3:12, “They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”

Here Paul quotes Psalm 14:3 and Psalm 53:3 (they both have the same wording), “They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.”

Blinded by sin, all turn from the way God prescribes and take a wrong path. As those wandering into forbidden territory they no longer display God’s mercy and truth. They are corrupted to where they avoid the mandates God made them to fulfill. They are not good, not even one single human being.

Romans 3:13, “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit; The poison of asps is under their lips”

Here Paul combines Psalm 5:9 and Psalm 140:3. Their throat is like an open grave: inviting death and decay. Their tongue is filled with poison like a snake with its lies and deceit. Not just lies to others, but lies to self as well, refusing to speak of things as they really are.

Then he quotes from Psalm 10:7

Romans 3:14, “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”

Instead of blessing God and helping others to find the truth, the fallen heart leads others along in the way of God’s curses which brings life’s bitterness.

The next quote is from Isaiah 59:7 and Proverbs 1:16 (the same wording).

Romans 3:15-16, “Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways;”

The fallen heart is easily provoked to retaliation. Since self is their god, others are not as important. Those who get in their way are pushed aside leaving a trail of destruction and misery. Fairness and justice are deformed into vengeance and protection for self interests.

Romans 3:17, “And the way of peace they have not known.”

Paul interprets here showing the turmoil that replaces peace in the lives of fallen hearts. They live by revenge, selfish goals, selfish ambition, and self-serving values. This produces arguments, anger, grudges, gossip. In their presence there is no real peace. Their imagined “peace” is only found in the brief moments when they get their way.

Finally, Paul summarizes a great Scriptural truth.

Romans 3:18, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Instead of reverencing the Creator and fearing his awesome dominion, they are more afraid of created things. They are afraid of what men might do to them, of what might happen to spoil their plans, to take away their things, or to keep them from a moment of self serving peace.

Their worship is man-centered. It either replaces spiritual reality with mystical visions and moods, or with a party atmosphere. Their values are corrupted because they are more afraid of not being able to sin than of the consequences and offense their sin brings before the one true God.

Isaiah warned with these words from God in Isaiah 51:12-13,”I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid Of a man who will die, And of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the LORD your Maker, Who stretched out the heavens And laid the foundations of the earth; You have feared continually every day Because of the fury of the oppressor, When he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor?”

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 36:1, “An oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes.”

People are more afraid of ridicule, of having an older car or a smaller TV set, than they are of facing the Creator they have offended.

The depravity of every human heart is seen in hundreds of Bible verse. One author collected 72 key verses all making this point. Paul quoted just these few which he felt were sufficient to make his case. All men, no one excepted, are lost in sin and totally depraved, without hope, on their own.

So if we are so terribly corrupted, where can we turn to discover the truth?

God has not left us to drift without an anchor.

Romans 3:19-20, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

As the first part of Roman had shown: God has made his truth known to everyone. He wrote in Romans 2:14-15, “for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)”

Those who have not heard the written word are still exposed to truth. It comes to them in the wonders of the things created, and in the voice of human conscience. No one is isolated from truth. God’s law convicts us all. There is no one excused.

But the law is not able to make us right with God. That was never its purpose. The law is not to provide a way of salvation, but its purposes are important.

1. The law of God silences our excuses and objections. It closes our mouths. It shows us the standard of God which we cannot and have not kept. It shows us that, though we have suppressed or ignored what God has declared, we are not excused from knowing and from believing the truth.

2. The law of God holds us all accountable. Some insist there is no law over them. They claim to be bound by nothing but themselves. They obey the laws of society only because they want to avoid the consequences. They curb their tongues, and watch their ways only when it i s to their benefit. They proudly and blindly grip to the illusion that they answer to no one. God’s law shows that, like it or not, we all answer to a heavenly King.

3. The law of God exposes our sin. We can fool other people, even the human courts of justice. They only look at outward evidence and listen to our words. So people work to conceal their sin, question the standards, use deceitfully worded testimonies and contracts, and argue against convictions. Self-love stops at nothing to make excuses for what pleases itself.

In contrast, the judgment bench of God sees the heart, the truth, the secrets. No one is innocent since in Adam all sinned and are truly guilty for their offenses. Tricky words and hidden evidence ca not fool our heavenly Judge. There can be no missing details or convincing perjury. The law of God makes the standard clear and leaves no one excusable.

4. But the law of God does not justify the guilty sinner. They are wrong who teach that we are justified by rituals or ceremonies, or by good works and nice deeds, or by our works of personal decisions, choices, or commitments. These deeds fail to honor this biblical truth. Nothing we do can save us.

This is not because the law is unable to show us what God requires. It shows us quite well, so much so that according to Romans 2:13, “… the doers of the law will be justified;”

The problem is not in the law. It is in the person’s inability to meet its demands. There is none righteous, no not one. No one understands or seeks after God.

There are also positive things God’s law accomplishes as it brings knowledge of sin.

1. The law of God prepares us for, and directs us to, the wonders of God’s Grace. When we come to know our hopeless condition we have no where else to turn but to Christ.

If the law is not used to teach persons that they are unable to right themselves with God, then the gospel has no real meaning for them, then grace is not seen as the unmerited favor of God. The work of the Savior is reduced to a stirring example instead of a triumphant atonement.

The law must be the first part of evangelism. It presents the lost with a holy God and with the reason why they need a Savior.

2. The law of God shows us how to be grateful to our Savior by obedience once we are made alive again by the application of the work of Jesus Christ. If there was no law of God then we would not recognize the perversions of our sin darkened hearts.

God’s law is a wonderful guide to the believer. By it he can know what he can do to show proper gratitude to his Lord. The redeemed need to know what our Creator says pleases him, not what we assume will honor him.

Humanly invented moral rules can lead us in the wrong path. When detached from the anchor of God’s truth, his gracious law, the rules we live by float about aimlessly and fail to mark out the channel.

I remember my dad teaching me when I was very young about guiding a boat through a channel. He told me to watch the red markers. I still remember the little phrase that helped remind me of where to pilot the boat, “Keep red on you right when returning from sea.”

The markers were anchored to the bottom and were unmovable indicators. If you wandered out of the dredged out channel you might go aground, hit rocks that could tear out the bottom of your boat, or you might get in the path of another boat and cause a serious accident.

If the markers were detached and just floated aimlessly around they would be useless. Boaters would have no guidance from the dangers of the waters.

Our modern culture has cut the cord that holds our moral rules in their proper place. Without the law of God as the anchor, our depraved hearts wander into dangerous waters.

We who love our Lord, and have by his grace come to know him have an important duty. We need to reattach our moral markers in life to the anchor God has given us in his word. The principles we live by must be fixed to God’s law which he has graciously provided, not as a means of salvation, but as markers of the right way for his redeemed children to live. God’s law teaches us how much we need the Savior, and shows us the way to express our love for the God who made us and who saves us from our guilt and condemnation.

It is tragic that in our age of relativism even some who claim to be Christians hate God’s law. They fail to see that the fulfilling of the prefigurings of Christ still point to him today. We are not to engage in the sacrifices, ceremonies of the Tabernacle, the dietary laws and such which were only temporary. However the moral principles were not given to Israel. From the beginning it was wrong to have or to worship other gods, to dishonor his name, to violate the Creation Sabbath, to dishonor those God puts in authority over us, to murder, to commit adultery, to steal, to lie, and to covet. God’s law lays out the attitude of humble worship where creatures fallen and redeemed by grace alone come to praise their Creator and Redeemer.

The Apostle Paul and the other writers of the New Testament certainly didn’t dismiss God’s previous words to his children in that way. Later in this letter to the Romans Paul commends God’s law as still very important as his guide in living to honor his Lord. In Romans 7 he wrote in verse 7, “… I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’ ” Then in verse 12 he said, “Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.” There are many places in the New Testament where we are shown the right us of God’s law.

The moral relativism we see nauseatingly repeated in the daily news and entertainment media reminds us that we all are morally corrupt to the core. God’s word as brought to our hearts by the Holy Spirit stirs us to confess our total unworthiness and dependance upon God’s redeeming grace alone for our strength and obedience. When we learn to love the law of God, that ability is also ours by grace alone, not by anything in our depraved hearts. We must strive to know and to obey the ways of God. We look to the firm foundation in Christ which is the anchor for our souls.

We learn to pray with the writer of Psalm 119:97, “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.”

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

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Greater Things Ahead

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Greater Things Ahead

(Westminster Shorter Catechism Q: 37-38)
(watch our video)
by Bob Burridge ©2011

People usually fear death, and put in a lot of effort avoiding it. That is one of the effects God intended in allowing death into our world. It shows the horrible consequences of rebellion against God.

We have seen tragic losses of life in stories about massive storms, earthquakes, wars, terrorist attacks, epidemics, and criminal violence. I read some personal letters from a father describing the terror in the eyes of his children as they walked past the clutter of dead bodies when their town was devastated by a huge earthquake.

We all go through the pain in losing loved ones, and the sadness in being separated from them. We also face the inevitable fact that one day each one of us will experience death ourselves.

It started in Adam, the one created to represent us. Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

Romans 6:23 calls death the wage we deserve because of sin. It is not only deserved because of the inherited guilt of Adam’s sin, but because of each sin of our own as well. Death drives home the horrible consequences of not living in full obedience to God.

Physical death means we have suffered some irreparable damage to our bodies to the degree that they can no longer function. It could be damage from injuries, disease, birth defects, violent crime, or even war. There is usually pain and suffering for the victim as well as grief and adjustments for his loved ones.

Physical death illustrates the even more tragic kind of death earned by sin: Spiritual Death. Just as our souls are separated from our bodies in physical death, lost and unredeemed humans are separated from fellowship with God forever in spiritual death.

When this life ends, we step into our eternal home. For many, it will be a very tragic place to spend the rest of forever. There will be no second chances, no time off for good behavior, no commuted sentences. For those rescued by the work of the Savior, they settle into an eternity of great blessings.

Physical death does not need to be something we fear. Death provides the darkness that makes God’s light shine so brightly and clearly. Death is the enemy overcome by the victory of Jesus Christ. This is what he secured for all his people.

God has given us a longing for the blessings stored up for us when this life is over. As redeemed believers in Christ, as soon as our spirits are separated from our bodies, we will be with others in glory. When the world’s final day comes, we will be advanced into a yet greater participation in eternal blessings.

Jesus did more for us in his visit to earth than to give us comforting words, corrected theology, and a perfect example of how to live. The blessings go beyond what we experience while we are alive. He purchased our place in heaven — irrevocably — forever.

Our first advancement comes immediately when we die.

The answer to question 37 in the Westminster Shorter Catechism says,

The souls of believers are, at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection.

First of all, this is a limited promise, not a universal one. God’s word has no assurance for those who show no evidence of faith in the work of Jesus Christ. Even the words of that popular Bible verse John 3:16 are very limited. It promise everlasting life only to those who believe in him.

It is not just believing that he lived, or that he suffered and died. It is not about believing that he taught good things. It means trusting in what he accomplished in his death, that his death made full payment for all the guilt of his people. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

At the moment of their death, believers are made perfect in holiness. In 2 Corinthians 5:8 the Apostle Paul tells about this assurance. It says, “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”

Though not yet admitted to the final state of glory, believers who die are no longer exposed to the temptations they struggled with in this life. They are held in the presence of Christ, and kept pure in their thoughts and deeds.

Hebrews 12:23 addresses believers in this way, “To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect”

As he hung on the cross, Jesus answered the repentant thief next to him promising in Luke 23:43, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

Paul understood the greater life ahead after this life is over. When he wrote his letter from prison to the Philippian believers he said in 1:23, “For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.”

As King David said in Psalm 16:11, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

While we enjoy the wonders of the immediate presence and comfort of our Lord in heaven, our bodies wait until the final day of resurrection.

In that resurrection our bodies will be reconstituted,
and will be reunited with our souls.

The answer to question 38 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says,

At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity.

This is the promise we have as we serve God here in this time of our earthly assignment. It is going to be the full satisfaction of our departed souls forever when we rest with Christ after death.

What we enjoy after our life here is over is just a taste of greater things to come. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul wrote about the hope and promise of the future resurrection. In verses 42-43 he said, “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”

At that time, when the history of the world is completed, believers will be raised up in glory. We are not presently able to comprehend the actual nature of living with resurrected bodies. All disease, defects and the scars of sin will be gone from body and soul. We will have new bodies designed to live in a different dimension than this 3D world of ours.

Quoting from Isaiah 64:4 Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

The Bible says that in that future life of glory we will see, hear, speak, sing, rejoice, and worship, but not with the limited kinds of eyes, ears, voices, and hands like we have now. It will be a very different kind of life than anything we can compare it with in this physical world.

In 1 Peter 1:3-5 it tells us about this unbreakable promise of God, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

The final resurrection will come with the final day of judgment. It will not be the kind of court scene we are used to seeing in our own justice system. There is no presumption of innocence with arguments for and against us. God does not have to make a decision based upon evidence presented. He knows from all eternity who are his and who are left to their deserved condemnation.

It will be a day when God reveals his eternal plan for each person, a day of of pronouncing judgments, not of deciding about them.

In Matthew 25:31-34, Jesus explained this final judgment at the time of his return in glory, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:”

Then in verse 41 he described how the great King will announce his judgment upon the rest, “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:”

As hard as it is for us to understand, this is the plain and direct teaching of God’s word. Then in verse 46 Jesus summarized that final message some will ever hear from God, “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

How can anyone be acquitted of his imperfections and rebellion against God? That is the core of the good news, the gospel, secured for us by Jesus the Christ. Only the perfect and infinite God, joined with a true human body and soul, could pay the moral debt of any one. Jesus died for all his people. That is exactly what took place in the completing of the work of Jesus Christ in his mission to the planet Earth.

He paid for his people’s guilt, all their guilt, what they inherited from Adam, and what they commit themselves. He credits them with his own perfect righteousness. They stand as righteous before God’s judgment because of what Jesus is and did. Of course, when changed by his grace they are also set free from the chains of sin that bound them, and are made able to live for God’s glory. That means they can really do good. They can help others, and worship with all sincerity, not for personal benefits alone, or to ease their conscience, but because of a true love for God implanted in otherwise deceived and selfish hearts.

In that final resurrection to glory, believers are perfectly blessed.

We cannot imagine the kind of joy we who rest in Christ will one day know there. Think of the greatest joys we can experience here in this life. There are the simple accomplishments that please us when we help someone, or learn a new skill, or when we have a great evening, are moved by music, or hear a well presented story. There are those times when our hearts are deeply touched by the love of friends and family, the feeling of seeing your child born and grow up, by those moments of victory and success we feel at times when we overcome obstacles, by the comfort and peace we feel when we come to our Living Savior for forgiveness.

The wonders we are going to experience after our bodies die will be greater than all these. In the presence of Christ we will know all we have known, but we will see it all with a greater understanding and even higher value. We will see how even the troubling times fit in with God’s greater plan. We will be with believers who are with the Savior now. Most of all, we will be with our Living Lord in a far greater way.

Now, think of what it will be like when after our dwelling with our Savior in heaven we graduate to an even greater joy, the eternal entry into glory when the great resurrection takes place. In 1 John 3:2 we have a hint of what it’s going to be like, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

There we will fully enjoy God’s presence and wonder forever.

We should be encouraged by the promises in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

This is our certain future. No matter what we face here, whatever happens to us, whatever we go through, in that final Resurrection we will be united with all the saints in glory forever.

All we have known will come together in a way beyond anything we can understand right now. We all know the comforting words in Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

One day we will see that greater good fully explained and applied.

The verses immediately after that verse fit it all into God’s eternal plan for us, his children, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

Before anything was, he knew us as his own. He decreed that in Christ we will be born out of our darkness into the light of true life. All those he knew beforehand, and those destined to life in Christ will be called to him. This is not be just an outward invitation. It is an inward transforming call of the Holy Spirit. To all those called he will announce them to be innocent by the work of our Savior. As those declared to be just we have the promise here that these same ones will be glorified.

We will one day step into a world we cannot know right now. There we will spend the rest of all eternity with the one who made all things. The King of all kings, the Shepherd of our Souls, will be our eternal Heavenly Comforter.

This is why King David wrote those assuring words of Psalm 16:11, “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

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

We need to learn God’s Word

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Bible Basics

by Bob Burridge ©2011, 2021
Lesson 8: We need to learn God’s Word

Every day we need to be learning more about what God tells us in the Bible. It’s one of the tools God promises to use to make us stronger Chistians. God always speaks the truth as the Bible tells us what we should believe and do. God’s word is also powerful to help us conform to what it tells us we should be.

Psalm 119 is a Prayer that thanks God for giving us his word in the Bible.

119:160, “The entirety of Your word is truth”
119:11, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.”
119:24, “Your testimonies also are my delight And my counselors.”
119:98, “You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me.


We should read our Bibles every day. Psalm 1:2 says that a person is blessed by God when “… his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.” We should pray to ask God to help us understand, love, and obey his word as we read it. Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law.”

We should listen to those God sends to teach us. God gives us Pastors and other teachers in our churches. Jeremiah 3:15, “And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”

God tells parents to help their children learn God’s word. Deuteronomy 6:6-9, “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Learning about the Bible is one of the ways God uses to help us become better Christians. Psalm 19:7-8, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;”

2 Timothy 3:15-17, “… from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Talk about what you read in the Bible when you are with your family and friends so you can help each other learn more about what is right and true.


(Bible verses are quoted from the New King James Version of the Bible)
Lesson 9: We Need to Pray
Index of all our lessons on Bible Basics

God: Faithful, True, and Just

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God: Faithful, True, and Just

Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans
by Bob Burridge ©2011

Lesson 13: Romans 3:3-8

Something was lacking in Israel at the time of the New Testament. It wasn’t that they weren’t large enough or rich enough. It wasn’t that they lacked influence, or didn’t have their doctrines all spelled out. Though they had many errors, there were some who had stated things correctly. The problem was that they were not holy. They were not living in a way that truly honored their God, and set them apart as his people.

While we identify many problems in churches today, the most pressing problem is not that we aren’t large enough or rich enough. It’s not that we don’t have enough influence in our society, schools, businesses or governments. It’s not that we need to better spell out our doctrines, and better define our organization or methods. Though there are always imperfections in our understanding, there is a place were things are stated correctly. The problem is that we are not holy enough. We need to get our lives in order so that we truly honor our God according to the principles he gives us in his word.

In the first two chapters of Romans Paul showed from the Scriptures that all have sinned, both Gentiles and Jews, and are equally condemned before God. So then, what advantage is there in being marked out as a covenant child of God if it doesn’t liberate you from the final judgment?

Chapter 3 began by explaining the great advantage to the members of God’s covenant family. They have the Scriptures, the word of God. In this book God’s true character is spelled out and our duties to him are made clear. This book also points to the restoration that is possible by the gospel.

Even with the advantage of Scripture, instead of learning what God was really like, and learning how to be holy, Ancient Israel assumed their blessings assured them of eternal salvation without a Savior like the one promised.

What had happened to Israel, the people of the book?

Romans 3:3, “For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?”

God made his covenant with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was renewed through Moses, King David, and the prophets. He would make their descendents a special nation blessed uniquely. Through them the Messiah would eventually be born. All this was clearly spelled out in God’s word which had been graciously given to them.

The problem was that Israel did not remain faithful to the covenant. In Acts 7:51-53 Stephen summarized that history to the Jewish leaders, “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”

Through their long history of unbelief and sin God had not abandoned them. He sent his prophets, and delivered them from their captivities. So why did God preserve Israel through all those times of rebellion?

She had not yet completed the purpose for which God had chosen them. By them was to come the Messiah who would reign on the throne of David forever, who would be the final Passover lamb to actually do what the other sacrifices only represented. He would suffer and die in place of his people to redeem them.

By the time Paul wrote to the Romans, the promised Messiah had come. The atonement had been made. The gospel message had been explained. God had completed the purpose of the Jewish nations as an image of the church to come. The church was now born. The symbolisms of it were no longer needed.

The time had come when their unbelief reached its absolute limit, the breaking point. Israel committed the final and ultimate breach of God’s covenant. She rejected and crucified the One God had promised from the beginning.

Their rejection of Messiah denied a major point of the law (if it is understood rightly). The law was intended to reveal God’s perfect holiness and fallen man’s inability to live up to it. It was designed to drive humbled sinners in repentance to the promised Christ. But the Jews changed the idea of the Messiah from a needed Redeemer, into a Jewish conqueror. They made the law into a way of salvation instead of what reveals the need for salvation.

Far from admitting that, the Jews saw the problem in a different way. Their question was, “If what you are saying is true Paul, that there is no special treatment for us Jews. Has God’s faithfulness to his promise to us been annulled? Was it no longer in effect?”

Paul dramatically denied that idea in his answer in verse four.

Romans 3:4, “Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: ‘That You may be justified in Your words, And may overcome when You are judged.’ “

Just what had God promised Israel? God had not promised them that each person would be exempted from judgment. God had not revealed his holiness as an optional thing which they were free to redefine. He said, “… You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy…” (Leviticus 11:44)

They had imagined that God’s covenant exempted them from that responsibility. They reduced the awfulness of sin into a minor issue. Jewish scholar Abarbanel once wrote, “If a Jew commit all manner of sins, he is indeed of the number of sinning Israelites, and will be punished according to his sins; but he has, notwithstanding, a portion in eternal life,” Many other statements of the Rabbis could be added saying the same thing.

When what we believe or practice differs from what God has said, God’s truth must prevail over man’s theories and excuses.

Paul quotes from two portions of Scripture that were familiar to the Jews. First he used Psalm 116:11 to remind them that lies are common to man, not to God. When what we say or do differs from what the Scriptures teach, we must abandon our position.

Then he quoted from David’s psalm of repentance, Psalm 51:4. He quoted directly from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament popular in his day. In Psalm 51:4 David prayed, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight — That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge.”

The problem was not that God did not live up to what he promised. It was that he never promised what they had imagined. The prophets often warned Israel that she had misunderstood God’s promises. Jesus gave a full explanation of how Israel had distorted God’s truth. Paul, the other Apostles and other New Testament writers continued that same lesson.

According to the prophets, and as Paul was teaching here, even Israel’s unbelief was part of God’s design. By their unbelief God revealed his mercy and revealed more of his plan. It was their unbelief that produced the atoning death of the Messiah on the Cross when their sin-blinded leaders demanded his crucifixion.

So a new objection is anticipated by Paul in this next section. If God used their unbelief and sin to further his plan and to reveal his glory, then how can he hold them guilty and condemn them?

How can God judge unbelief if he uses it to promote his plan?

Romans 3:5, “But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.)”

Paul makes it clear that he is raising a hypothetical question. He is speaking not for himself now, not for God, but as one of their objectors might speak. So if Israel’s unbelief was all a part of God’s plan, how can God find fault with them?

This is the classic problem of the place of sin in the sovereign plan of God. “If God uses even our sin for good, then how can he rightly judge us?”

People creatively justify their sin by making it appear good and acceptable to God. Though this relationship between our sin and God’s plan isn’t directly explained in Scripture, it is the height of presumption to assume that no explanation exits.

The question, as Paul words it, implies the negative. God is not unjust or unholy when he uses man’s sin and rebellion to advance his plan.

Paul quickly and clearly lays aside that charge.

Romans 3:6, “Certainly not! For then how will God judge the world?”

This question only becomes a problem for those who presume unfounded things.

The pantheist sees everything as nothing more than God acting. If God is the force in us that sins, then there can be no human responsibility, no just judgment, and no real acts of men. By this line of reasoning Hitler’s desire to purify the human race would justify his atrocities. By this line of reasoning we are wrong to arrest or punish criminals of any sort. By this line of reasoning no one should be judged by God for anything.

This is clearly false. Scripture shows that individuals are clearly held accountable for their immorality. Therefore the sins of people are their own acts, not God acting in them.

The religious humanist sees God as being controlled by man’s choices and actions. God is reduced to a beggar-deity hoping man will make the right choices so his plan will work out. By this line of reasoning man is god and is sovereign over the final outcome of all things. By this line of reasoning God does not direct anything to a planned outcome. By this line of reasoning nothing is certain and there is no wrong way for things to happen.

This is clearly false. Scripture shows that God has decreed all things eternally. He has also decreed that individuals will be held accountable for immorality. It is the sinner who is morally responsible for his acts which are really his, though God decreed them to happen as part of his perfect plan.

Assumptions like these attempt to gut the idea of holiness. They presume that God cannot hold us responsible since his plan never fails. The fact of God’s Sovereignty and Providence are clearly established by direct statements in the Bible. God calls us to be holy. We are to be specially his children, set apart from what we were before the transformation of our souls by grace, and from what we would continue to be aside from his power at work in us as his beloved children.

Since neither of these views is consistent with Scripture, man has no excuse for his sin. Israel has no exemption from judgment for her many sins, and for her recent rejection and crucifixion of the Messiah.

The unredeemed often blend biblical language with those pantheistic or humanistic theories. Men object to the biblical teaching that “no one is saved by his own choices or deeds.” They hate the doctrines of God’s grace and the stated fact of eternal election of some to life. They ask “How can anyone be blamed for rejecting the gospel if God has ordained all things?”

Why would men dream up such convoluted ideas as these to explain away plain biblical statements? Our fallen nature hates the truth, and love its sin. It wants the kind of God who doesn’t hold them accountable for their actions and attitudes. It wants the kind of power and enlightenment Adam and Eve hoped for in Eden, to be like God.

To sweep away such a plainly wrong notion, Paul points to one simple fact: God does judge men in the final judgment. If the Jews could say their sin is excusable because God uses their unbelief for good, then anyone could say the same thing. No one would be held guilty for any sin since all is part of God’s decree. That is obviously not sound reasoning. There is a judgment. Therefore their logic and the data they assume to be true must be flawed.

How ridiculous it would be if a child said, “Yes Dad. I did play out in the street today. I know that was bad and against your rules. But by such bad things you get to show what a loving and forgiving parent you are! If you punish me it will make me feel bad, and you don’t want that. So instead of punishing me you should maybe reward me for giving you such a good opportunity to show your kindness.”

Or if a convicted felon said, “Yes Judge. I did shoot that man while I was trying to rob him. But it’s by such things that we get to see our fine judicial system at work. You get to show what a loving, kind, wise, and fair person you are. These jurors get to be good citizens, and the whole idea of civil law ends up looking good. Perhaps we could write a book or go on talk shows together! Since what I’m doing can be used for good, then certainly I don’t deserve any punishment.”

Though parents and courts may bring good results out of our bad behavior, that does not excuse the bad behavior.

Certainly the same is true on a much higher plane with God. Though our Lord uses our sin and rebellion to move along his greater cause, this does not excuse the sin and rebellion. It still demands the death of the sinner, and his eternal separation from God.

Only if a perfect Savior pays the debt in the sinner’s place is the guilt removed. This removal of guilt is not an indication that God doesn’t care about our sin. The infusion of spiritual life when a sinner is redeemed ought to produce something wonderful. It is not to produce a care-free sinner unafraid to sin again and again. It is not to produce a judgment free society which we call a “church”. It is to produce people who are holy, set aside to honor God as his covenant people.

This is “scriptural optimism”. It is stated in clear language many times and summarized well in Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

This does not mean that the sins of individuals become good. It shows that God in his plan uses even the sins of men for good, contrary to the nature of the act. Ancient Israel’s and modern man’s reasoning is wrong. We dare not presume that a loving God will not judge rebellion. The same Bible that teaches us that God is loving and has made a covenant, also tells us that his promise does not excuse us from accountability.

Only being born again by the work of the Savior can we be set free from our guilt. Those who are free, are also made alive, and will evidence it by their love for holiness.

Those who dig for philosophical excuses to sin without accountability show they have no place in his covenant except for taking advantage of and abusing its outward privileges. They heap judgment upon themselves by such conjectures.

Paul then takes this dangerous idea another step
to show how its implications are inconsistent.

Romans 3:7, “For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?”

If the Jews are so quick to excuse their own rejection of Messiah and their own sins, and if they presume that since their unrighteousness furthers God’s glory, then why do they find fault with Paul and his gospel? Isn’t Paul’s gospel, even if it’s a lie, a part of God’s plan and by their reasoning excusable?

This reasoning is clearly false. God judges all sin and all sinners. Judgment is a fact. The same Scripture that declares there is a God, tells us what kind of God he is and how his moral principles work. You can’t believe only the parts you like or you become the judge of all things over God.

The only hope anyone has is that Jesus the promised Messiah has suffered for him. That was the ancient promise. It was not that every Israelite would be exempted from judgment, but that all who show the evidence of grace in their hearts are judged innocent by imputation. The righteousness of Christ is declared to be theirs, and their sins are declared to be his. He suffered and died as the infinitely perfect sacrifice who alone could be their substitute.

It is not Jewishness that delivers men from judgment. It is the Savior. Salvation was not to make us able to sin and still be saved. Salvation is to make us holy even as the Lord our God is holy.

Paul took his reasoning one last step.

Romans 3:8, “And why not say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’? — as we are slanderous reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.”

Why not go all the way to the extreme then, and do more evil to make more good. Some had obviously slandered the Apostle by actually saying that he taught this.

Those who misunderstand the purpose of God’s law will misunderstand the message of grace. Law does not save us. Neither by our obeying it to earn salvation (which no man can do sufficiently), nor by assuming that the covenant God makes with us frees us to sin without judgment. There is no legal code or promise of God that defends sin. The law always promotes holiness, even though it cannot produce it aside from the work of our Redeemer.

When we understand our lack of this important quality, we are brought by grace to the Savior Jesus Christ. He not only forgives and declares us holy, he also transforms us and makes us begin to grow in holiness.

So what marks out the true covenant child of God? What affirms that he is delivered from judgment by Christ? It’s not his circumcision or baptism. It’s not his pure theological correctness. It’s not his response to an altar call or an emotional decision he made. It’s not his heritage, culture, or family. the legitimate child of God does not try to philosophically justify his sins.

The mark that distinguishes us is Christ-likeness implanted into a changed human heart. We are called to be different than the fallen human race into which we were born. This practical side of holiness should be our goal, our passion, the test of all we allow to be part of our lives.

Paul summarizes the objections to what God has said with one terrifying thought: “their condemnation is just.” Though God uses even sin to advance his plan and to display his glory, that sin is still evil, and is not excused.

Our human creativity is able to make up complex excuses. We imagine all sorts of theories attempting to fill in what God has not made known. In our fallen nature we arrogantly reject his truth on the basis of our own foolish assumptions.

The Gospel promotes holiness. There are reasons for our rebellion, but there are no excuses for it. Those who are transformed by the Gospel will seek to be holy. They will see that their excuses for sin do not make it acceptable.

As you set important goals for yourself, for your family, for your job, for what you will leave behind in the memories of those you have loved and known, make sure that they are all directed toward holiness. We were created to bear the image of our Creator in the world he made. Individuals are redeemed to be restored to fellowship with God so they can display the grace, mercy, love, and power of their Redeemer.

This is our created purpose. It is that for which our Savior died. It is your vocation in every part of your life. Nothing else is more important. Nothing else will bring true inner peace and happiness.

(The Bible quotations in this article 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

Redemption’s Benefits

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Redemption’s Benefits

(Westminster Shorter Catechism Q:32-36)
(watch our video)
by Bob Burridge ©2011

Jesus Christ came to bring us abundant life.


In his lesson about the Good Shepherd in John 10, Jesus said in verse 10, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

Bringing life to the dead is not rational to us creatures. We know that when someone or something dies, there is nothing we can do to reverse that.

In the early years of maintaining an office, first in my science lab office when I taught school, then again in my first years here as Pastor, I failed in my attempt to have live plants for decorations. They started out alive, but when they died I knew there was nothing I could do for them except to get rid of them. I now have some very nice plastic plants on my desk.

It is a sad adjustment when a loved one is taken away from us by our Lord. King David lost a son who was born to Bathsheba. He deeply grieved when the son was sick. When the baby died his servants were afraid to tell him for fear of how it would effect their leader. When they delivered the sad news, David understood that there was nothing more anyone could do for his child. He rested in God’s covenant promises that his child was taken into the merciful and all powerful hands of God.

In 2 Samuel 12:22-23 David said to his servants, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can tell whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”

Death is a one way barrier that when crossed, we cannot go back. This is how God intends it. It teaches us a very important spiritual fact. Our souls are irretrievably lost in the spiritual death we all inherited from Adam. We are all born in that grip of the curse of spiritual death. There is nothing we can do, nothing any church can do, to make ourselves alive and right with God. In contrast with our inability as lost creatures, our Creator can make the dead alive. It is part of his nature to be able to do what we cannot do.

To illustrate this there were a few times when God reversed physical death. God worked through Elijah to raise the widow’s son. Jesus raised several from the dead, including Lazarus. Our Lord himself rose from the dead. The Apostle Peter raised Tabitha. Paul raised Eutychus. These were all done to show God’s power to overcome death, both physical and spiritual.

But life isn’t a one time event. It is a growing process that matures into something greater than its beginning. It is astounding how tiny cells grow into a baby, then that baby grows into an adult. From a tiny hand full of seeds, we see the growth of an entire forest.

When we become alive in Christ by his redeeming grace, it is not only and end to spiritual death. It is a launch into the adventure of growth toward the perfection God plans for us in eternity.

There are wonderful benefits to all those Christ redeems.

Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question 32. What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life?
Answer. They that are effectually called do in this life partake of justification, adoption, and sanctification, and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them.

Before we can enjoy the benefits of life, we need to be made alive.

Spiritual death is the separation of our souls from fellowship with God. The guilt of sin makes us unacceptable to him. Spiritual life is when the barrier of separation is taken away. To remove the guilt, we need to be Justified.

Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question 33. What is justification?
Answer. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.

To preserve the quality of justice, the guilt of our sins needs to be paid for. That is why Jesus came and died. He took the guilt of his people upon himself, and gives his children his own perfect righteousness. They are declared innocent by God as our Judge.

That is what justification is about. It is not that we are really innocent in ourselves. It is that we are judged innocent because our Savior paid our debt in full. It is not anything we do, decide, or desire that makes us innocent. It is an act of God by grace alone. It is not like the catchy phrase some us to define Justification: “Just As If I’d Never Sinned.” That may describe the legal standing we have after justification, but it is not what the word means.

In Romans 8:33 Paul said, “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.”

The means God uses is the faith he implants in us when the work of Christ is applied. As God puts it in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

We say we are justified by faith, but faith is not the reason we are justified. The reason is God’s gracious love in the Savior’s death in our place. Faith is the instrument God puts into us that makes us know and trust the fact of our redemption in Christ.

It is not just that we believe something. It is that we trust fully in the finished work of Christ. None of us would trust in that, if he had not paid the debt for our sins, and grace had not applied that work to reunite us with our Father in Heaven.

By grace God opens our eyes. It makes us see how offensive our sins are to God, and brings us to sincere repentance. It also makes us see the truth of what Jesus did in our place so that we will have faith in his work of redemption.

When the barrier of sin is removed,
the redeemed are adopted into God’s family.

From the time we were conceived physically, we were part of a fallen race of people. Because of Adam’s failure to keep God’s covenant we all were alienated from God’s family. When a person is regenerated by grace through the work of Christ he is adopted as our Creator’s children forever.

Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question 34. What is adoption?
Answer. Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges, of the sons of God.

When we consider our imperfections and tendencies to sin, it is amazing that anyone could enjoy any privileges at all in God’s family. But through Christ we have a declared right to all those privileges as joint heirs with our Savior.

We have the promises of the Bible, and the witness of the Holy Spirit in us to assure us that this is a promise we can count on. In Galatians 4:6 it says, “God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ ”

He has both the common Aramaic word used by the Jews for “father”, Abba (Αββα, אבא), and the word used for “father” by the Greek Gentiles, Pataer (Πατηρ). All who are justified by grace through faith can have this confidence.

In Romans 8:16 it says, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

All who are adopted into God’s family grow to live more righteously.

Life means we are growing and maturing into something more than what we were when we were born. We are not only saved from hell, we are changed inwardly by Christ.

Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question 35. What is sanctification?
Answer. Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.

Sin is not our way of life anymore. It is not our master. We know we are still very imperfect until we’re taken to Christ after this life is over, but for now we have a different relationship with everything that offends God.

Our sins trouble us. We do no longer make excuses, or try to justify our offenses. We know we should not do what God forbids, and we should never neglect what he commands. We understand that even our apathy about Christ’s truth, love, and kingdom is an inexcusable attitude. Instead, we are humbled when we sin. We come in broken repentance again and again, begging not only to be forgiven, but also to overcome our sins.

We learn that even our moments of obedience are works of God’s grace in us. We give him all the glory. In Philippians 2:12-13 we are reminded to thank God while we work hard to become Christlike. “… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

Humility is one of the most basic evidences of Christian maturity. The closer we draw to Christ, the more we become aware of how imperfect we are, and of how grateful we ought to be for his constant work of sanctification.

The more we learn about righteousness, the less righteous we realize ourselves to be. Instead of discouraging us, we need the attitude of 1 John 3:3, “And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

We understand that our faith is not really a full trust in God if we are content to still excuse our sins. The Book of James tells us in in James 2:20 and 26 that, “faith without works is dead.”

[You may want to read my more complete study on the subject of Sanctification.]

For all who are part of God’s family by grace,
there are enormous benefits in the abundant life God promises.

God’s children are assured of our Savior’s love. 1 John 5:13 says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”

Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question 36. What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?
Answer. The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification, are, assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.

As immature believers, we might not always and fully understand or appreciate the certainty of God’s promises. We might not know them well. We may be uncertain that we accurately understand what God has said to us in his word.

As we learn what the Bible actually says, our doubts fade away. We realize that the uncertainty was not a failure to trust God, but a weakness in knowing what he promised.

Real assurance does not come because of emotional moments, or in the stirring words of a preacher. It comes as the Holy Spirit teaches us what God has actually said. As born-again children, we will trust all that we know is God’s truth.

No believer improves without set-backs. It is a growing process. Part of our assurance is to understand that even when we fall back into some sin, we are already forgiven by Christ who died knowing our failures ahead of time.

Peter and David knew what it was like to be brought face-to-face with their moral imperfections. After they failed, they came with sincere repentance and trust in the all-sufficient work of the Savior. We are assured that though our sins seem even more offensive as we learn more, we are constantly growing in our appreciation of our forgiveness and of Christ’s power in us.

As forgiven children we come to our Father in heaven with confidence. Hebrews 4:16 invites us into God’s presence, even in our most weak moments. It says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

God’s children are assured of many blessings as they mature in Christ. They are assured that they are at peace with God, and they find peace in their own souls because they trust God’s promises.

They know they are forgiven, and that their Sovereign God is always in control. They know that “… all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” as Romans 8:28 promises us.

They find a true inward joy in the Holy Spirit through even the hardest of times. They know that abounding grace that does not love them for what they do. It loves them because of the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ which is credited to their account in heaven.

God’s children are assured that they will persevere to the completion of God’s promises. In John 10:28 Jesus said, “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”

Children learn that even when good parents punish them, it’s for their own good. Hebrews 12:6 says, “For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.”

Then in verse 11 it explains this to us, “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

A true believer can never fall from God’s mercy and grace. He might, however, fall from his own awareness of both. Those who find no assurance in God’s word, or who make excuses for their sins may never have been regenerated believes to begin with.

In 1 John 2:19 we are warned, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”

This is why 2 Peter 1:10 challenges us to prayerfully battle for Christian maturity in our lives. “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble;”

The redeemed are forever God’s children. 1 Corinthians 15:57 says, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is that abundant life God promises us in Christ.

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

What can we do to be stronger Christians?

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Bible Basics

by Bob Burridge ©2011, 2021
Lesson 7: What can we do to be stronger Christians?

To have stronger and healthier bodies we need to eat foods that are good for us, get enough exercise, get enough sleep, and take our medicines when we get sick.

To grow as better Christians there are things we should do too. God’s power and blessing is what makes us grow, but he tells us to obey him, and to make use of the tools that he promises will make us stronger spiritually. We call these the “means of grace“.

1. We need to learn God’s Word.
God’s word tells us what is true, and what things are right to do. When we read and study the Bible God uses it to make us more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. We should read our Bibles every day. On Sundays we need to pay close attention during the sermons and lessons at Church. We should listen carefully when we do our Bible study times together as a family and with other believers.

2. We need to talk with God in Prayer.
God tells us we should come to him in prayer. We should tell him how wonderful he is as our Creator and as our Savior who died to forgives us for our sins. We should thank him for his many blessings. We should repentantly admit our sins to him, and ask him to help us not do things that offend him. We should bring our needs to him, both our own needs and those of others we know. We can pray any time from anywhere. A healthy Christian should pray throughout the day.

3. We need to take part in worship, specially the Sacraments.
When we go to Church to worship we should pay attention to every part of the service. Worship is a very important exercise to keep us spiritually healthy. We should be sure we have been properly baptized to show we are members of the covenant community bearing the name of our Savior. When we understand the Lord’s Supper we should go to the leaders of the church and ask them to let us join with the congregation in humbly and thankfully receiving the bread and wine during Communion. God promises to help us grow spiritually when we receive the sacraments in the right way.

4. We need to help each other to live by what God says is right.
When we do wrong things, our Christian friends encourage us to admit our sins and to change our ways. When we do right, we should encourage one another too. Sometimes when Church members will not admit their sins or will not make things right again the officers of the church may correct them. They might even tell them not to receive the Lord’s Supper until they are ready to change their ways and admit they have done wrong..

These are ways God works in our lives to help us grow as Christians. They make us stronger. In our next studies we will look more closely at each of these means of grace.


(Bible verses are quoted from the New King James Version of the Bible)
Lesson 8: We Need To Learn God’s Word
Index of our lessons on Bible Basics

Covenant Advantages

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Covenant Advantages

Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans
by Bob Burridge ©2011

Lesson 12: Romans 3:1-2

In the first two chapters of his letter to the Romans, Paul showed that all people, Jews and non-Jews, stand guilty before the judgment throne of God. There are no advantages or exceptions when it comes to God’s moral justice.

Those untaught by Scripture, are nevertheless exposed to God’s truth. Creation and their own human conscience confront them with enough information about God. In failing to honor him as their Sovereign Creator they are without excuse.

Those who had been taught the Scriptures, are even more without excuse before God. They will be judged by the law which God had mercifully gave them. Since it demands perfect obedience and condemns eternally for even the least moral violation, no one has ever been, nor could ever be, justified by his personal deeds or choices.

Our fallen nature cannot admit that things can be that bad for us. Many of the Jews in the first century had corrupted God’s promises, and reasoned that since God made a covenant with their ancestors; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and since God gave them his word and marked them out as special by circumcision, therefore they thought they would be exempted from God’s final judgment. God had not promised them anything of the sort.

Many today also rely upon promises God has never made. A fantasy faith not only fails to produce what people expect, it also leads to wrong ways of living. It obscures the truth God has made known, and confuses people when the imagined promises fail.

Jesus, and Paul here in Romans, often confronted the corrupted Jewish leaders about this issue. Contrary to what many had come to believe, there is no special privilege or exemption when it comes to being restored to fellowship with God. No one is above or beyond the law of God. There is no promise, no assurance, no good deed, no heritage, that has ever excused anyone from sin. Nothing can escape the fact that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The religion God had mercifully given them had been turned into something superficial and false.

There is only one way in all of Scripture to be made right with God. God promised to send a Messiah who would die in the place of his people. On that basis God would grant forgiveness and infuse spiritual life into individual dead souls. Their faith in him and obedience to his word are a result of, not the cause of, that new life.

Paul raised the questions the Jews were asking in order to give his answer.

Romans 3:1, “What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision?”

If, as Paul had been teaching, neither circumcision nor being born a Jew involved a promise of eternal salvation, then what advantage is there in being marked out as a covenant child? Was Paul discounting all of these wonderful blessings of God upon the Jews? Was he teaching that there is no advantage to being a member of the covenant community?

He gave them a dramatic answer about their advantage in verse two.

Romans 3:2, “Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.”

He had listed some of the privileges of being one of God’s covenant children in 2:17-20. What’s more, God delivered them many times during their history from enemies and oppressors, even when they had been wicked. He had promised to bring the Messiah into the world through them. He used them to be a foreshadowing of the gospel community of the church after the coming of Christ, and to reveal his electing grace.

He doesn’t say their greatest advantages were miracles, victories in battle, heritage, or culture. Their primary advantage was being entrusted with the word of God. Here Paul calls it the “oracles of God.” Paul used a term the people in Rome would know well. Their culture was filled with visits to the oracles of the gods of Rome. They came seeking messages from these imagined supernatural beings. Paul applied that heathen terminology more correctly to God’s word which alone is true. God has spoken! He made himself known by his prophets, and preserved what he said in the written Scriptures.

This prophetic word had been specially entrusted to Israel. They were to preserve that word, love and obey it, and promote it to the whole world. God’s family, all of its members in every period of time including our own, ought to love, obey, and promote God’s word.

How is having the word of God an advantage for the covenant people,
if it doesn’t assure salvation to each person who possesses it?

First, there is an outward benefit to any society where God’s word is respected.
God reveals himself not only by redeeming an elect family, He also makes his truth known much more broadly by moral principles to which all of created humanity is held accountable. By the pledge of his word God instituted a community of covenant people to live in the midst of an openly rebellious world.

There are three basic groups to whom God reveals himself to promote his glory.

The first group includes all of mankind. All people in all ages see God’s power and glory displayed in Creation. They all have a moral conscience that brings inner conflict when they do wrong. However, in their fallen condition, aside from a special work of saving grace, they will not honor God as revealed. They will pervert his truth to serve themselves, and heap well deserved judgment upon themselves.

The next group is smaller. It includes all those who submit at last outwardly to God’s covenant. They are the visible, or outward church, the “covenant people of God.” From the time of God’s promise to Abraham up to the Apostolic era after the resurrection of Jesus they were the people of Israel. After that time, they are those who make up the Christian church at large, both Jews and Gentiles.

Finally, there is a still smaller group, those God actually redeems by the Messiah. These are the ones the Bible calls the Elect of God (Ephesians 1:4-6). They are commanded to join and identify themselves with the outward or visible church to be part of the covenant community. Not all who are in the covenant community are actually redeemed as individuals, but all the redeemed ought to become part of the covenant community.

The Jews should not assume they are redeemed or immune to judgment just because God entrusted them with his word, and marked them out as a special people by circumcision.

Though these advantages do not redeem them, God’s word and membership in the covenant community are a benefit to all who are united together as the church outwardly in each era. Having the oracles of God makes for a better society and a healthier and happier people in a temporal sense. By identifying sin and commanding punishments, it holds back the free expansion of sin. Living among restrained hypocrites is better than living among unrestrained haters of God. It is less dangerous to have a neighbor who goes to church and refrains from sin in selfish ignorance, than one who is openly profane, violent, and criminal.

This provides a more godly setting for the benefit of God’s redeemed children. Not that keeping the law redeems the good neighbor in God’s judgment day — it does not. But it helps his redeemed neighbor to live in more outward peace. Those who enjoy God’s temporal restraint of evil, but who fail to give him the glory for it through Christ, only condemn themselves all the more.

All who claim to be Christians but who are not actually redeemed by Christ, have temporal advantages by growing up in a godly home, a sound church, or a law abiding community where God’s word is known and respected.

There is also a special inner benefit which God’s word brings to the redeemed.
The Scriptures are God’s means of revealing the work of redemption to his people. When the convicting power of the Holy Spirit opens the heart by redeeming it, the wonderful promise of redemption is understood. The Cross becomes a personal deliverance. This is the intended outcome of the law of God for his children. His oracles, when accompanied by his saving grace, convince and convict of sin, and drive a humbled person to the Savior with a true God-implanted faith in the work of Christ.

Psalm 19:7, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul…”

2 Timothy 3:15, “… the Holy Scriptures … are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

The power of the word and law is not just to promote a set of behaviors. At its root, and all through it, the word is the revelation of God to his people. It teaches that God is Sovereign and Wonderful. It reveals that man is lost and deserves complete separation from God and eternal suffering. It also explains that God has promised to provide a Messiah to redeem his people and to reveal his grace. Jesus said in John 5:39, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.”

This is the focus of the oracles of God. They point to Messiah. They display a redemption not by works, but by imputation of holiness by grace. Without this gospel message the law can only condemn.

For the redeemed, the law becomes a light to guide them in how to please the Savior. It informs the conscience by removing the misconceptions of fallen hearts. It helps us to grow to be more holy like our Savior was holy.

Psalm 119:9, “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.”

Psalm 119:11, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.”

It is not just having or obeying the outward details of God’s word that redeems a person as many of the Jews thought. It is when the Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ to an individual called by God’s grace alone. That is what transforms him wonderfully into a growing child of God.

How is the word of God to be handled by those to whom it is entrusted?

The people of God are to learn what God’s word says.

The primary place for instruction is the Church.
God’s people are to learn under the organized teaching of ordained Elders. This is clearly the case not only in old Israel, but also in the New Testament form of the church.

Elders are given the duty to oversee the instruction of the people in God’s word. They are held responsible for filtering out human ideas which are contrary to what God has said, and for being well studied in the Word so they can guard against the constant flood of errors (Titus 1, 1 Timothy 5:17).

As God ordained, his people are told to go to the Elders for instruction. They are not to seek out teachers just because they are good speakers or writers with a captivating and entertaining style. They must be men who are sound in their beliefs, and who know their Bible’s well. Those who merely entertain may appeal to our still imperfect hearts and mislead those who listen to them.

2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”

This is why it is crucial for the health of God’s people that they be regular in attending all the worship services of a sound church. The worship and primary lessons of the Sabbath Day provide for the Elders to teach all of God’s word in a systematic way. To only attend some of the lessons is like going to school, but skipping some important classes.

The next level of instruction in God’s word is the home.
While the home is the most “basic” unit for instruction, authority, and discipline, the parents are to be in subjection to the Elders of the church as those shepherds God set above them in these matters. Then, as obedient sheep, parents and particularly the male heads of the home are to enforce and practice in their families what they learn under the shepherds of the church.

The Oracles of God made this clear from the beginning. Moses and the Elders of Israel gave and explained the law as those called of God to do so. In the home it is also to be daily studied and exemplified. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 says to the parents of the home, “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Paul commended the home where Timothy grew up saying in 2 Timothy 3:14-17, “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

The obedient Christian family will responsibly honor the Oracles of God in their home by letting God’s word permeate all of its activities. It is not enough to limit this to just “devotional times”. Parents living a reasonable example of what they teach show what holiness looks like in action. The family should pray faithfully for the Holy Spirit to help others and themselves to grow spiritually. Parents should attend and bring their child to church regularly in all its services. Preparations should be made on Saturday to be sure that clothes are all ready, that everyone gets the sleep he needs, and has a plan for getting ready in time. When people go on vacations, attend sports activities, go to work daily, arrive on time for movies, dinners, and for special sales at the malls, but are not be able to get out to church, it betrays what is most important to them. It impresses that distorted order of priority upon their children. How you live teaches more effectively than what you merely say.

We are also to learn the word of God on our own, privately.
Every believer on his own ought to read, study, and think on what God has said. It ought to be our meditation day and night, wherever we are, and in all we do.

Psalm 1:2, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.”

Psalm 119:97, “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.”

Paul commended the believers in Berea as more noble because, ” … they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.” (Acts 17:11)

So what is the advantage for us today in being acquainted with God’s word?

All of us ought to honor God as he shows himself in creation, providence, and conscience. Those who call themselves “Christians” ought specially to honor God’s word. Their church membership will not redeem them from guilt as Israel came to think. Many in the church today think that coming forward at an evangelistic meeting, or being baptized, or being a faithful church attender, or having prayed a so called “sinners prayer” will save them. But those things are never mentioned in God’s word as the cause of our being redeemed. The word well taught, condemns such ideas and tells us the wonderful truth of the gospel in its place.

The world in which truly redeemed believers live will be better to the degree that God’s word is obeyed, even if just superficially. This is a great advantage to those who grow up in the church. However, this has nothing to do with those who are lost being made right with God.

For the believer who is redeemed by Christ, the Oracles of God are a greater advantage than gaining mere outward peace and civility. They train up their little ones not only to know and to obey what is right, but they can also lead them to Christ who forgives them and enables them to live rightly. They can appreciate the true meaning of the law as a means of exposing our own helplessness, and showing the gratitude we ought to have toward our Savior for his undeserved favor and blessings. Those transformed by the Savior can and should effectively promote God’s word in their work, in the community, and in their homes. They are to bring all things captive to Christ.

A home or society permeated by and directed by God’s word is a better place to live for God’s people. It openly displays the characteristics of the Creator. When that word is accompanied by the redeeming work of Christ and the application of it by the Holy Spirit, God’s word brings spiritual life and promises a dwelling place in the home of the Lord forever.

(The Bible quotations in this article 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

Abducted and Rescued

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Abducted and Rescued

(Westminster Shorter Catechism Q 29-31)
(watch our video)
by Bob Burridge ©2011

There have been too many stories reported
about young children who were raised by abductors.

Children have been taken illegally from their real parents. Some were taken at such a young age they never knew their real parents. The abductors raise them as if they were their own, and the children believe them.

If the children are older when taken, they can be manipulated to accept the situation. Some of them stay because they are terrified of going against their captors. Some come to believe they really belong to their captors and become surprisingly loyal. They often take on the beliefs and life style of the one who took them.

We were all horrified at the story a few years ago about Jaycee Lee. She had been held by an abusing abductor for 18 years. She helped the one who held her with his business, and adjusted to her situation to survive. A few years earlier there was the similar case of 14 year old Elizabeth Smart. Shawn Hornbeck was taken at age 11 and rescued almost 5 years later when he was found living in an apartment only a few miles from his real family’s home.

The good news about these cases is that they were all rescued and reunited with their real families. We saw the tears of absolute joy when parents found out their lost children had been found.

In a very real sense, we all were abducted as part of the human race in Eden.

We were raised with our abductor who acted as our wicked father. The good news, the gospel, is that some were rescued, redeemed, and returned to the Loving Creator’s family. It is when trusting in God’s successful rescue by Jesus Christ that some are returned home.

The answers to Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 29-31 teach us this important fact.

Answer 29. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit.
Answer 30. The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.
Answer 31. Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.

Our salvation from captivity is summarized in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

The Holy Spirit applies the redemption Christ purchased. He opens our eyes to trust God’s promises and truth. Through that, he re-unites us with our Savior.

To redeem us, the Holy Spirit convinces us of our sin and misery.

He shows us that in the past while we were held captive by sin and Satan we served him as if we were truly his children. It is important to realize that every one of us is hopelessly unworthy of God’s care until that work of grace. But once delivered, we have no business continuing in evil.

In 2 Timothy 2:26 The Apostle Paul says that before God delivers us to repentance, we were captives in the grips of Satan. It says we are re-generated so that we come to our senses, and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. In Romans 6 Paul says we were slaves of sin until set free by the work of Jesus Christ.

When those who are marked by grace become God’s children, they are no longer held in Satan’s grip. If they still fear him, or behave as is they belong to their captor, they are deceived. They are living in a lie. They never really belonged to their abductor, but he held them as if they were his.

While taken in by Satan, they serve a master who isn’t concerned about them. He abuses them every day, and deceives them. Those held by him do not know any better. 1 Corinthians 2:14 explains our spiritual blindness. It says, “… the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

When we’re redeemed by the Holy Spirit,
he enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ.

Our Rescuer shows us who we really are, that our abductor isn’t really concerned about us and has no claim upon us. We realize that we no longer have to live in bondage and put up with his threats. Our Savior tells us we were loved by the One who made us, even before the world was created.

This is why we can’t rescue ourselves. We do not realize that we need rescue from captivity. The lost might know they need help because things are not going well for them, but they don’t understand that they are held by the enemy of God, the hater of all that is good.

In 1 Corinthians 2:11 God’s word says, “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.”

Those redeemed by God’s grace are given eyes to see the truth and the wonder of the gospel. In that same chapter, 1 Corinthians 2, verses 9 and 10, it explains the promise of our Redeemer, “But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.”

Our renewed hearts are persuaded and made able to trust in what Christ did for us. We rejoice to be back home and part of the family from which we were abducted in Adam. With our chains taken off nothing can hold us back from running with thankful love into the arms of our loving Father.

The Catechism reminds us that this call of God is “effectual.”

This means that it always accomplishes everything God intends. The Holy Spirit applies the Son’s work to all those redeemed. He infallibly applies all the benefits secured for them by Christ. John 3:6 says we need to be “born of the Spirit.” Titus 3:5 tells us that our salvation is due to the “renewing of the Holy Spirit.”

God is our Sovereign Lord. He is not some pitiful beggar pleading for us to permit him to do his holy will in saving us. Our Heavenly Father seeks out and brings his deceived children home.

There are two kinds of gospel callings described in Scripture. When these are confused, God’s truth becomes distorted.

1. First, there is an outward call for all come to Christ.
This is the gospel message, the invitation to believe God’s work of redemption. God honestly and sincerely promises salvation to all who have faith in Christ and who come repentantly to Him.

Of course fallen humans are neither able nor willing to obey this outward call to come trusting fully in the work of Christ alone. In John 6:65 Jesus said, ” no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”

The Apostle Paul explained the reason they refuse to come in Romans 8:7-8. There he wrote, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

An invitation to believe in Jesus Christ does not save anyone. Jesus warned in Matthew 22:14 “many are called but few are chosen.” Unless the Holy Spirit changes the heart, they will not come.

2. Second, there is also an inward call from the Holy Spirit.
Paul wrote in Romans 8:30, “Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

He is speaking of the same group of individuals in each of these stages of his work of grace. All those justified will be glorified. All those called will be justified. All those predestined by him to be his own are called in this special way.

The Holy Spirit never fails to complete the work of the Trinity. Those same ones predestined and called, are certain to be both justified and finally glorified.

For a person to have faith, he needs to be made alive spiritually. Colossians 2:13 says, “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.”

Once the heart is changed, nothing can possibly hinder his coming to Christ in repentance and faith. God does everything necessary to ensure that the sinner will most certainly come. This is why we say this inward call of the Holy Spirit is always “effectual.”

As those set free by God’s grace, they are part of the Redeemer’s family.

That is quite an amazing fact for us who were part of a fallen race, deceived children taken in by the enemy of all that is good. Now as rescued and restored children of God, we want to show our love for our Father. We want to do those things that honor him. We have so much for which to be thankful.

In a healthy home, children grow up wanting to show their parents how thankful they are too. Though they do so imperfectly, they strive to express their love to the ones to whom they truly belong. That is what causes children to make those misshapen clay dishes, crayon scrawled Mothers Day and Fathers Day cards taped to the refrigerator door, and water color paintings with helpful explanations written in pencil on the back to remember what it was supposed to be. That is what brings on the hugs and smiles when they are most needed.

I’ve seen thank you notes written to firefighters and rescue workers for bravely saving a home, a pet, or a child trapped in a burning house. Thankful children want to please their parents, and to honor their rescuers. We want to do that too, toward our Triune God: our Heavenly Father, our Gracious Redeemer, and the live-giving Holy Spirit.

Once rescued, we need to stop the habits learned from our abductor. We want to be like our loving Heavenly Father, and to live in ways that please him.

In Romans 6 Paul calls us to recognize our being set free to be what honors our Savior. In verses 11-13 the Apostle wrote, “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”

While we live on this side of heaven,
the ways of our abductor still influence us.

He gives horrible advice about the important foundations of your life. He makes you focus on yourself above everything else. He says, “Put yourself first.” He wants you to focus on your own problems, your own comfort, pleasure, and material wants.

As for those eternal issues, he says. “Forget them.” He tells you they are just far off concerns, nothing over which to waste your time. He tempts you to be concerned above all with the comforts and pleasures of the moment.

He tells you not to trust God’s word. He convinced Adam and Eve to question God’s goodness and motives. He persuaded them to try to reason things through aside from what God said was right and true.

Today the Tempter makes us see our imperfections as support for our doubts. He suggests that since not everyone agrees about what the Bible says, it must be unclear and unreliable.

He influences you to have a wrong attitude toward life. By all that surrounds you, he tries to draw you back into his ways. He wants you to be like him, not like the one to whom you really belong by grace. He teaches you to be selfish, vengeful, covetous, driven by lust and material success. He uses your music, TV shows, Movies, friends, co-workers, and Internet resources to center your view of the world on thoughts that marginalize the work of your Redeemer.

Your Heavenly Father advises you very differently.

He tells us to make God’s glory at the center of our lives. We should put him first, and rest in his grace as our hope and foundation. He calls us to value eternal issues, and to keep them as our focus.

We rise above the moment, to see the flow of God’s plan at work in his world. We see tragedies like the deaths of the Egyptians on Passover night, and the agony of that Cross on Mount Calvary, as pointing to something greater. We see the amazing plan of Redemption unfolding and look to a future eternal victory. We know that our little material gains today are truly his blessing, but are of little importance when compared with our secure place in eternal glory with our Savior.

We know that God’s word is clear when it is allowed to speak for itself. We see that the confusion of denominations and sects do not come from an imperfect Bible. They come from adding imperfect ideas to it, or from neglecting to see how it all fits together.

The attitude God calls us to have is not what the world thinks is best. He calls us to be patient, forgiving, honest, and kind even to those who are unkind to us. We need to overcome the rude and evil ways learned from our abductor. We need to observe and conform to the ways of our true Father.

There is real promise and real power available to those Redeemed by Jesus Christ. We can learn to be what God calls us to be, and to overcome the leaned ways of our abductor. When we stop to appreciate the Redemption so graciously given in Christ, we are humbled and amazed. We exclaim in our hearts what Paul wrote in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!”

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

How do we become one of God’s people?

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Bible Basics

by Bob Burridge ©2011, 2021
Lesson 6: How do we become one of God’s people?

So far in our basic studies we have seen that the Bible tells us what God wants us to know. It tells us about God who is the Creator of everything, and the Ruler over all that he made. We learn from the Bible that we do wrong things because Adam’s sin made us self-centered, immlral, and rude as his descendants. Only God can change our sinful hearts. This is why Jesus came. He came as our Savior to pay for the guilt of his people’s sins, and to credit them with his own goodness.

Now the question is: how do we become one of God’s people?

1) On our own we can’t trust in or really understand God’s promises. Our sin makes it so that we can’t do anything good.

In his letter to the Romans (3:10-12) the Apostle Paul quoted from the Old Testament. He said, “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.’ ” In verse 23 of that same chapter it says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

2) God rescues some by grace. Grace is when God loves us when we don’t deserve it ourselves.

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (2:8-9) he said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

This means that it’s God’s grace, not our own goodness, that makes someone his child forever. When we trust in what Jesus did we know that God has changed us, that he made us able to do what we could never do on our own.

3) Faith is the trust God puts into our hearts by his grace. When we have this “saving faith” it means we are confident that Jesus paid for our sins and grants to us his goodness. It means that we should not trust in anything we do to become God’s children. Instead we trust completely in what God did, and we trust in that alone.

We become sorry for our sins and come repentantly in prayer humbly admitting that we are lost undeserving sinners. We thank God for his grace alone that makes us part of his family based on the work of Jesus who came and died to rescue us. This makes us want to worship God and to do what God says is right. We want to be good obedient children of God because we have come to want to show how much we love God for loving us.

4) When we trust in what Jesus did for us, God tells us that we are innocent of our sins. We are not innocent because we never did anything really bad enough to deserve eternal condemnaiton, nor that we did good things to become deserving of his love. We are innocent because Jesus paid for the guilt of his people by dying in their place. When God changes us by his grace, we discover that Jesus paid for our sins on the Cross.

What God does never fails. We can know that we are his people when we see that faith at work in our hearts, and when we are truly sorry that our sins have offended the God who loved us so much.

The Bible assures us of this in many places. In Romans 6:23 it says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Our salvation is a wonderful gift of grace. We cannot stop being loved by God once he has rescued us. We are not God’s children because we deserve it. We become his children because we trust that Jesus earned it for us when he lived and died in our place.


Lesson 7: What can we do to be stronger Christians?
Index of our lessons on Bible Basics
(Bible verses are quoted from the New King James Version of the Bible)

Deceptive Hypocrisy

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Deceptive Hypocrisy

Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans
by Bob Burridge ©2011

Lesson 11: Romans 2:17-29

The religion of Israel was impressive in the time of Christ. The Jews had a glorious Temple, scholarly Rabbis, and a powerful Sanhedrin of honored spiritual rulers. They practiced fancy rituals, wore special clothes, and followed ancient traditions. But there was one serious flaw: it was a confusion of what God had actually commanded them to be and to do.

They had adopted a whole set of cultural rules that gave them spiritual pride. They thought that because of their strict observances, they were so holy that God was pleased with them and would bless them forever. But they had changed the real spiritual principles into superficial and outward rules. While they avoided certain places and certain unclean things, they had missed the real issues of God’s law. They had replaced them with the laws of men.

Paul wrote the Book of Romans to set things right. In the first two chapters he showed that God excuses no one from the demands of justice. The Gentiles, who were un-taught in Scripture, were guilty without excuse. God had generally revealed himself in creation and in their conscience. But they failed to honor their Creator as he had made himself known.

The Jews, who had been taught the Scriptures, were guilty without excuse as well. They will be judged by the law God gave them. It condemned even the least violation of morality. There was no special privilege or exemption from moral and religious responsibility. No one is above or beyond the law of God. Moral and religious principles were built into Creation itself.

So now in this next section of the letter, Paul went on to show them the danger, hypocrisy, and offense of their superficial religion.

The Jews had been graciously privileged to be called God’s people.

Romans 2:17-20, “Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law.”

The name “Jew” is from the Hebrew word “Judah” (יהודה). It means “one who is praised.” God had made a covenant with that nation to make unworthy sinners into his people. They were marked out by the sign of circumcision, and graciously given God’s truth by his prophets.

As a nation they considered the laws of Scripture to be trustworthy. They gloried in Jehovah who had promised to be their God. They knew that God’s will was revealed in the Scriptures. They gave approval to the things that were good, or “excellent.” They confidently considered themselves to be guides for the spiritually blind. The Rabbis called themselves the “light of the world”. Jesus used their own expression and applied it more correctly to his own Apostles. They dared to correct the foolish and teach the immature. They had the law of God, the very embodiment of knowledge and truth.

These are all good things. But there was a problem.

The Covenant People were not obedient
to what they said was good and right.

Romans 2:21-23, “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?”

In short, he was implying that they were hypocrites. Paul cited the common crimes of the Jews, the same ones Jesus had accused them of committing. They dared teach others but really needed to teach themselves. Jesus had corrected them saying in Matthew 22:29, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.”

They rightly condemned stealing, but they were guilty of theft. Paul didn’t mean that they actually crept into homes and stole someone’s belongings. However, they oppressed the poor, and kept for their own use what would have helped the truly needy. They charged unreasonable interest for loans, imposed high temple taxes, and demanded that worshipers pay to exchange their money for temple currency. As in the days of Malachai, they had re-directed God’s 10th of their income for their own use. The people couldn’t understand the prophet Malachi’s charge of theft so God through that prophet said. “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘ In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings.” (Malachai 3:8)

These abuses were obscured by the Jew’s complex and prideful rules and exceptions. It was just a cover up for self-gain and for disregard of God’s principles.

They condemned sexual freedom, but committed it themselves. This included spiritual adultery in lowering their idea of God to go along with corrupt popular ideas. It also included defending physical lusts and sexual looseness and immorality as long as it was done discreetly, and within certain popular contemporary limits. Jesus had also rebuked them for making excuses for their sexual liberties.

While condemning idolatry they robbed temples. The language here is more broad than just physical idols, or theft of temple treasures. The terms were used for showing a general disregard for holy things, sacrilege. As Jesus said, They had made the house of God into a den of thieves. They desecrated the true sacrifice making it an abomination as Daniel had warned.

In a culture of non-believers, a love of all kinds of religion is considered noble. God has always called broad inclusivism a serious offense. There have always been those who try to find words that make it sound as if we all believe the same things when we don’t. It was for their stand against such things that the prophets were persecuted and executed.

Paul seems to have a portion of the popular Psalm 50 in mind here. Notice the similarities.

Psalm 50:16-21,”But to the wicked God says: ” What right have you to declare My statutes, Or take My covenant in your mouth, Seeing you hate instruction And cast My words behind you? When you saw a thief, you consented with him, And have been a partaker with adulterers. You give your mouth to evil, And your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I kept silent; You thought that I was altogether like you; But I will rebuke you, And set them in order before your eyes.”

It is sin enough to steal, or to practice sex outside of marriage, or to approve of false religions. Then to condemn others while speaking as God’s spokesman and doing the very same things, adds yet more offense to their charge.

The behavior of God’s people reflects upon
the reputation of God among others.

Romans 2:24, “For ‘the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,’ as it is written.”

Notice that he says “just as it is written”. Paul is alluding to the Jew’s own Scriptures. The principle was laid down long before by Moses. He warned that because of their sin God would one day let them be taken as captives. While among the nations they would become a mockery. Deuteronomy 28:37, “And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you.”

Long after the time of Moses, after listing the sins that caused Israel’s captivity, God’s Prophet said in Ezekiel 36:20, “When they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name — when they said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, and yet they have gone out of His land.’ ”

As children can bring disgrace and dishonor upon their parents, so Israel by her hypocrisy brought disgrace upon God instead of promoting his glory. They had been captured and were being held as slaves by the ones they called heathen. It was caused by Israel’s own sins and rebellion. Yet in the eyes of the heathen Jehovah appeared weak and defeated. They had been seen as a hypocritical nation holding forth the Ten Commandments of Moses and all their high standards, but living selfishly, deceitfully and lustfully. It made God appear to have founded an immoral nation.

The hypocrisy continued in Paul’s time. God’s people are marked out to be a testimony to the world of God’s glory. Disgracefully, they often obscure God’s truth and glory when their compromise with culture or
religion makes God’s ways seem unclear or unimportant.

God’s covenant with his people is not
just about the things we see outwardly.

Romans 2:25-29, “For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.”

God had commanded circumcision to mark out families as his own special people. As a mere act it had no magical powers and offered no benefits. It changed no one by itself, but as a sign and seal of God’s covenant it served a very important purpose. It marked out God’s covenant people from all others. It represented God’s pledge to fulfill his promises to them. It obligated the marked out people to all the stipulations of God’s covenant.

But a covenant carries with it both blessings and curses. Moses explained that part of God’s covenant in Deuteronomy 11:26-28, “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.”

Circumcision was only one part of God’s revealed law. By marking themselves out as God’s people, they were obligated to live by all of God’s principles. Paul quoted another part of God’s promises from Deuteronomy 27:26. In Galatians 3:10 he said, “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.’ ”

So to take pride in circumcision but to disobey any other part of God’s law demands the curse of the covenant, rather than its blessing. The central duty for God’s people in the covenant is full obedience and faithfulness. Disobedience annuls the outward claims. The Jew who breaks the law makes his circumcision into uncircumcision.

Remember, this was Paul’s main point in this section of Romans. He was showing that all people, Jews and Gentiles alike, are in need of salvation by grace. Since all have sinned, no one can expect the blessings of God’s covenant.

Those who sin but are outside of the covenant have no promise of blessing. If such a person was to keep the law, his lack of an outward sign would not hinder God’s blessing. His obedience would show that he had been redeemed by God’s grace and deserved the sign. God judges by the deeds of men which reveal the state of their heart, not by their professions, claims, or rituals. (2:6).

Those who sin bearing the sign of the covenant, deserve its curses, not its blessings. Circumcision is no exemption from justice. God sees all and is not fooled. Circumcision marked out those who were outwardly God’s people. It is never said to actually redeem anyone from their guilt and excuse them from justice apart from the work of God’s redeeming grace.

The Jews had come to trust in the rites, not in the work the rites represented. God gave the law and its sign to point to the need for and promise of the Savior. However, the Jews made a “Savior” out of the law and its sign. Circumcision took on a magical sense to them. Rabbi Menachem said, “Our Rabbins have said, that no circumcised man will see hell.” The Rabbis wrote; “Circumcision saves from hell” (Jalkut Rubeni), “God swore to Abraham, that no one who was circumcised should be sent to hell”(Medrasch Tillim), “Abraham sits before the gate of hell, and does not allow that any circumcised Israelite should enter there” (Akedath Jizehak).

Such things directly contradict what Moses said. God looks on the heart and does not regard mere external circumstances. The real Jew is one circumcised in the heart, inwardly pledged to God’s covenant.

There has always been both a visible and an invisible people of God. The visible church is made up of those who are outwardly identified with God’s covenant. Stephen, in his detailed history of God’s covenant to the council in Acts 7 referred to Israel as God’s church or “congregation” in the wilderness. This same church continued after the time of Christ in a renewed form, but still represented those people called out by God’s promise of Grace. Paul said in Gal 3:7, “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.”

The visible church is made up of all those who say they believe the truths revealed in God’s word, who promise to strive to obey the principles of God’s word, and who submit to the outward ordinances of God’s word including the authority of his church. These alone are biblically considered to be members of God’s covenant people. For the Jews the sign of membership was circumcision. For believers after the coming of Christ its the sign of baptism.

This, however, is only an outward relationship. It does not promise that each member is redeemed. This is the error made by the ancient Jews and by many Christians today. Baptism does not save a soul from hell any more than did circumcision. However, it does obligate all who are baptized to the whole of God’s revealed principles. Those who take on the sign but disobey call down the most frightening curses of God.

The invisible church is made up of those actually made right with God by grace. In ancient Israel it was those transformed by regeneration based on the future work of Christ. In New Testament times it is those regenerated by that same work of Christ now accomplished. We cannot know for sure who are of the truly redeemed. Only God knows for sure, so we use the word “invisible church.” We cannot see by our own judgment who is included.

We are told to look at the evidences of a redeemed life. By this the Elders are to admit believers to membership or to remove them from the Lord’s Table (as in Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 11). By these evidences we are to examine our own lives in light of God’s word. There is no hope in circumcision or baptism alone. However, if we see the evidences of a changed heart, we can have great hope in God’s promise.

What hope is there if we are hypocrites? If our lives contradict our profession? If our attitudes show no evidence of the Fruit of the Holy Spirit? If our morality is conditioned more by situations and feelings than by eternal principles? Then there is due cause for alarm and grave spiritual concern.

Jeremiah warned God’s people long ago in 4:19-22, “O my soul, my soul! I am pained in my very heart! My heart makes a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, Because you have heard, O my soul, The sound of the trumpet, The alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried, For the whole land is plundered. Suddenly my tents are plundered, And my curtains in a moment. How long will I see the standard, And hear the sound of the trumpet? ‘For My people are foolish, They have not known Me. They are silly children, And they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, But to do good they have no knowledge.’ ”

Membership in the church, baptism, a memory of a decision or emotional moment, or a long list of rules and things you abstain from, are no ground for hope in God’s promises.

Since we are all guilty before the demands of God’s law, our only hope is in the provisions of the Savior Jesus Christ. By his perfect life his people are credited with righteousness, his righteousness. By his suffering and death the sin and guilt of his people are justly satisfied in God’s eyes. By the renewed fellowship they have with God by Christ’s redemption, real works of righteousness and the character of Christ are produced in them. He delivers us from hypocrisy by forgiving it, and by changing the heart itself.

Where the life contradicts the profession of faith, where situations and outward rules replace God’s more broad principles of morality, there is room for grave doubt.

Come to Jesus Christ and make your calling and election sure. Look back upon your baptism as an ordinance given in God’s Covenant God as a sign and as a seal of his pledge to redeem his people by the gracious work of the Savior, and that you do not see it as a replacement for the Savior.

Make sure you love the Law of God because you have been transformed by grace to love the God of the Law. Make no excuse that would diminish the holy and sovereign Lordship of the King of kings in your life. Confess and repent with a determination to live in faithful obedience by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the standards in God’s revealed word.

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

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