Romans

Romans Chapter 5

• Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
• 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Just as if we never sinned is what justification is. We are justified by faith. Through faith in the finished work of Christ, we are justified. We are reconciled back to God that sin separated us from. Jesus is like a bridge over a deep valley that was once was impossible to cross alone but now all who exercise faith in Him, can be reconciled to God.

No man can come to the Father except through Jesus Christ. He is the way and the truth and the life and there is no other way to God or to be saved except through Jesus. Reference for this is John 14.

What does it mean to be saved? Are we saved from physical natural death?

We are saved from sin. Sin is what separates us from God and dooms our soul to be lost for eternity. This sin has to be removed. Jesus came to save from sin and to get that sin removed, we must believe in Him and believe in His death, burial and resurrection. His death was punishment for sins that He didn't commit so He didn't have to pay for His own sin since He had none. He took that punishment in our place, to pay the price for our sins and justify us in the sight of God.

He was buried for three days but then our true hope is in His resurrection. He was raised from the dead. He overcame death indicating that we who trust in Him can also raise from the physical death to have life eternal. The soul and spirit never die and will abide either in a place of torment so that sin can never escape from that place to influence the rest of living people or abide with the Father until the time when God's visible eternal kingdom is set up.

It is the soul that Jesus came to save. We will receive a new body that can never die again but the salvation of the soul depends upon our faith in Jesus the Son of God.

• Isaiah 59:1 Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
• 2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

To be free from the bondage and corruption of sin, will bring with it, joy, peace, love and reconciliation with God our creator that we were separated from when sin entered into the world with the sin of Adam.

• John 8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

To refuse the only way of salvation through faith in Jesus the Christ is to refuse the only way out of eternal separation from God in a place called hell.

• Romans 5:3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
• 4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

It is hard to glory in tribulations unless we remember that we will never have more than we can bear and that if we have tribulation because of the gospel, we are partakers of Christ's sufferings and shall share His glory afterwards.

We will never achieve patience by always having it good and never having any difficulties. We get patience by tribulation.

Patience brings in experience and by that experience in struggles and difficulties that God helps us through, we can help others that are also suffering these things. Experience brings hope. When we are full of hope we do not suffer shame. If we lose our hope, we become ashamed, discouraged and cast down.

• Romans 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

This is a goal that we want to try to seek at all times. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This is mandatory for any believer. We need to first love God and then love one another. By this shall all men know that we are disciples of God if we love one another. All we do is meaningless if we have no love one for another.

Satan tries to get us to be satisfied with a counterfeit love or a substitute for love. It can be sensuous and full of idolatry. For instance we can love leaders both in the secular world or church world too much and become idolatrous or obsessed with them. This is not real love but a sensuous one that is not real. This may be a love that depends on circumstances. The minute the leader offends us, we turn against him or her.

In other cases, people will follow a leader to their deaths like in the case of Jim Jones. Because of following this man and not having the God kind of love but an idolatrous one, many people were deceived and later killed.  In saying that, we must not go the other way and think we have a right to pick and find fault with every thing a leader does.

Paul had the right kind of godly love that he labored hard, risked his own life and traveling from place to place to bring the gospel to those who have not yet heard the gospel. We must strive for the perfect love that comes from the Holy Spirit. The 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians describes this kind of love.

True godly love may cause us to lay down our lives for other believers, labor to help others, weep and cry with them, but it will not cause us to be obsessed with them or follow them if they stray away from the truth.

Love also is accompanied by truth. If we always compliment people and try to get on their good side so to speak and refuse to warn them if they get into serious error, that is not real love. On the other hand love is not nitpicking at every little mistake.

• Romans 5:6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
• 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
• 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This is the test of love. We love people when they are still sinners and not so nice. Christ died for us long before we were saved. He loved us when we were bad. He didn't love the sin that was killing us but He loved us enough to stay the course until He could say, it is finished.

• Romans 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

We do not hear the blood mentioned as much as we should. It is the blood that He shed for our sins that saves us. The blood of bulls, goats and lambs pointed to the one that was to make the sacrifice that could save from sin, but the blood of the animals had no power to save in themselves.

• Hebrews 10:4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
• 5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
• 6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
• 7 Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
• 8 Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
• 9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
• 10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

It is hard for us who live in the modern world to grasp the beautiful sacrifice that was made on our behalf but think about it. What a sacrifice to bring us a new way, a new beginning and life eternal.

• Romans 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
• 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

What redemption, what joy in that we are saved from sin by the death of Christ and also justified by His resurrection. Believing these things reconciles us to God.

• Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
• 13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
• 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
• 15 But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

Through the sin of one man, Adam, death came upon the whole world. Not only physical death but spiritually we were separated from God. To be separated from our creator is the same as death because it causes the soul to be lost. To keep sin from continuing forever the soul that is in a lost condition at the point of physical death has to go to an eternal hell.

• Luke 12:4 And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
• 5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

The only one with this power if God our heavenly Father.

• Mark 9:43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
• 44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

So we see there is an existence of a literal burning hell that is eternal.

• Romans 5:16 And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification.
• 17 For if by one man's offense death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)
• 18 Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
• 19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

We see that by Adam's offense all became lost and separated from God. Death entered the world by only one man. That is why only one man was necessary to come and reverse this curse upon mankind. That one man who came to undo what Adam did is none other than Jesus Christ. The 2nd Adam.

It had to be a man in the flesh in order for His death to count toward mankind's eternal soul. It had to be a man to undo the deeds of Adam.

It had to be God to overcome the temptation to sin and live a perfect life to the letter of the law without sin. If Christ had of sinned one time, He would have died for His own sin and not be illegible to die for ours.

God had to become a man. Emmanuel means God with us. God the Son came in the flesh. He became one of us yet He never sinned. He fulfilled the legal requirements of the law so that all who believe in Him can be saved from sin and be granted eternal life where death can never rule over him any longer. Jesus conquered death on behalf of any and all who will believe and receive Him.

• Romans 5:20 Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

We had to have the law first to show us what was required to get us back to God that the sin of Adam brought upon us. The law shows us what sin is and how it separates us from our creator. The law showed us the penalty of sin and the requirements needed to save us from sin. Blood had to be shed to redeem the sinner back to God. The law says that the soul that sins shall die. Someone had to die in order to pay the price for sin. Jesus came to do just that. If He had failed in one point and changed His mind, none of us could ever be saved. We would all die in sin and be lost and without God forever.

• Romans 5:21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

God's mercy and grace reached out to us as sinners and opened up to us a way out. He sent the only way and that way was Jesus. He made it simple and not hard to understand so that even a child knows how to be saved. We turn from our ways and turn to His ways and simply believe in all He did to save us. Repent means, turn from sin, turn to Jesus to be saved from sin.  DC