READINGS ON ROMANS (1)
READINGS ON ROMANS (1)
FER I had not thought to take up the epistle in detail, but a few leading thoughts. We could have read any other portion, but every epistle takes its character from the particular light in which Christ is presented. That is, in every epistle Christ is presented in some particular light, and the epistle takes its character from that light. That is the key to the understanding of every epistle.
GWH I believe you said elsewhere that in this epistle He is presented as the mercy-seat.
FER Yes, because the great point all through the epistle is the first principles of the knowledge of God. It is not the setting forth of the gospel. The gospel may come out in it, but that is not the object exactly, but the point of the epistle is to instruct believers in the first principles of the knowledge of God, and hence Christ is a mercy-seat to declare God’s righteousness, because that is the first principle of the knowledge of God so far as man is concerned.
JP And you mean by God’s righteousness what you have spoken of as the rights of God in mercy.
FER Yes; redemption. He hath set forth Jesus to be a mercy-seat, through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness, that is, the righteousness of God is declared in redemption. I think there are two great things that come out in the two chapters if you take chapters 3 and 4 together. One is the righteousness of God, and the other is the power of God.
JP That is witnessed in raising up Jesus our Lord from the dead.
FER Yes; take it up in contrast to Israel. Israel were taken up in a way to declare the righteousness and the [p. 200] power of God. That is what God intended Israel to be a witness to, but they were not that. I do not know if you have noticed the passage in Isaiah 26: 12 - 19. That is what comes to pass in regard to Israel, they have been with child, they have been in pain, they have, as it were, brought forth wind; they have not wrought any deliverance on the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. Instead of being a witness to the righteousness and power of God they have been the contrary; that is what we get in Romans 3.
JP And they will at last answer to the mind of God, but in the meantime they broke down.
FER Quite so.
WM And in Christ we get the present contrast to that in righteousness and power.
FER Yes. We know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever.
JP I was thinking of that second verse of Isaiah 26, “Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in”. In the day to come they will answer to God’s mind through His work in them.
FER It is immensely important that as things are, God’s righteousness and power must be really the foundation of everything, because there is the assertion of man’s rights. We have not to do with a universe where there is no evil, but in this present universe there is the assertion of other rights and of other power. That is what we have to contemplate. Man asserts his rights. Satan asserts his rights in a kind of way. So, too, on the other hand, there are enemies; death asserts its power; the enemy asserts his power. There are rights and powers asserted in the universe which are not of God.
JSA And God must ultimately prevail. So it is a great mercy that He has been pleased to make Himself known now.
FER Quite so. Then in Israel God came in to raise up a witness to His righteousness and power. Israel had to confess that they were a witness to neither, “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags”. They never declared the righteousness of God. If they could have kept the law they would have declared it. Then again they failed entirely in power. So in the passage I read, they have to confess, “we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen”.
JP I suppose what took place in connection with the fall of Jericho was only a sample of what God intended — that there should be a display of God’s power.
FER But then it fell by Israel; through the priests with the rams’ horns. There was a momentary display of power, but it all came to nothing. They were overcome to a large extent by the inhabitants of the land, and carried away captive eventually to Assyria and Babylon; the inhabitants did not really fall.
JP But rather they fell by the inhabitants really. So, too, in regard to the other point, if they could have kept the law they would have been witnesses to the righteousness of God. It would have had its place in them and they would have been witnesses to it, for the law was the expression of God’s righteousness, and if they had kept the law they would have been witnesses to the righteousness of God.
WM Do you think the question of righteousness must be the first thing spoken of in the mercy-seat?
FER Yes, because there is lawlessness here. Lawlessness has come into the universe and therefore God intended to raise up Israel as a witness to His righteousness and power.
WM But when that actually comes out, it is not in relation to Israel simply but to the world.
FER Israel were to be witnesses to the whole world. Israel were never intended to be shut up to themselves.
JP And so with the temple, the Lord said it was to be a house of prayer for all nations.
FER Yes; Israel were not to be altogether shut up to themselves. They were to be a witness for the whole [p. 202] world and a witness also of power as against the enemies of God, as Mr. P. was saying they were at Jericho.
JP So there was in Israel a distinct foreshadowing of what is now in Christ.
FER Yes; God comes out with a real witness.
JP And what you were saying is a great point, because it maintains in our souls the unity of God’s ways and shows the connection between the present and the past.
FER Quite so. God foreshadowed what He intended to set forth, but Israel were incapable; then God comes out, and in Christ you get the witness of His righteousness and the witness of His power.
JSA Do you mean it was always the thought of God to make Himself known in the world in and through man? If so, it becomes extremely important for us now, if we have any knowledge of God, that we should set it forth actually and really.
FER I think so. But then it is declared in Christ. You have not got the church now on the footing of Israel, because the church stands in attachment to Christ, in connection with Christ, though of course the element of responsibility comes in in connection with the church, but the church is not in the position of Israel. Israel stood in a kind of way on their own legs. They were not brought into attachment like the church. They had not the Spirit of Christ. That is what has come to pass in the church, so that the position of the church is very different from that of Israel.
WM Do you not think in a certain sense that Christ took the position of Israel? He was God’s Son brought out of Egypt, and these principles were set forth in Him perfectly.
FER Yes.
GWH Israel completely broke down, and in Christ everything was maintained.
FER Yes, but what I would like to get hold of is the importance of these things in regard to our knowledge of [p. 203] God. Because if we are defective you may depend upon it we are defective in the first principles of the knowledge of God.
GWH That is righteousness.
FER And power, because everything in the world makes it appear as if lawlessness were in the ascendant and God was weak. For instance, everything is dominated by death. Death is the greatest power we know of here. Sin and lawlessness prevail in the world even in such a splendid country as America.
GWH Is there not at distinct relation between salvation and righteousness?
JA I have heard you say that if you look simply at the world as it is, that you would draw the conclusion that the One who made it is either powerless or evil. So it is a great thing to get the knowledge of God.
FER So far as God is concerned, everything around us looks like lawlessness on man’s part and weakness on God’s part. People give themselves up today in a kind of way. They give themselves up to lawlessness and accept death as inevitable. Their effort is to keep it from them as long as they can, and as long as they have the opportunity they will be as lawless as they can. They will do their own will defiant of God.
WM And yet righteousness has been established and death overcome.
FER That is the point for faith. God has come in to witness His righteousness and at the same time His power.
WM But it is all by faith.
FER Yes; that is the foundation on which we stand in our souls.
LPT Speaking of God’s power, what do you mean?
FER It is set forth in the resurrection of Christ, We believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. That is the great witness of divine power; the greatest act of divine power that ever has or ever will be [p. 204] exercised. God has broken through the power of the enemy and raised up Jesus our Lord, and He is the witness and the vessel of the power of God. He is spoken of as being the power of God, but He is also the witness of God’s power, and He has been raised again from the dead, so that what faith has in Christ is the witness both of God’s righteousness and of His power. I do not care what I see around me; that does not trouble me at all, because I look at Christ and I see in Him the righteousness and the power of God.
JP And you are really in the light of that.
FER Yes; and the practical result is this, that you can in all your conduct act in reference to God, and you do not fear evil. That is really salvation.
JSA And faith is the conviction of things not seen. You do not see it outwardly, but you know it is there.
FER Yes. I think the way God took in regard to Israel was this, ‘I am going to put a witness in the world’. He had given promises previously, but He did not establish a witness, but in Israel was virtually stated, ‘I am going to establish a witness, I will have a witness to My righteousness and power’. He took them out of Egypt and His power was set forth in that way. He brought them to Himself through the Red Sea, and then Jericho fell before them; they were a witness of His power, and at the same time had they kept the law they would have been a witness to His righteousness, for this reason, that God would have had His rights in the people.
LPT They broke down.
FER Quite so, and God put them aside. Now God says, I will declare My righteousness and power in another way. I will set forth Christ. He shall be the witness of My righteousness and I will raise Him again from the dead so that He shall be the witness of My power. That is what God will have in the world.
JA It is really wonderful. God sends Christ among the people, and the result was they would not have Him,
[p. 205] so that Christ after the flesh could not bring pleasure to God as regards man, so He brings in righteousness in His own way.
WM It is a remarkable thing that God presents these things to faith, when the present course of things remains unchanged.
FER Else there would not be any place for faith. Faith comes in when the course of things is not changed, but the testimony of God comes in to give you a foundation. Instead of all you witness around, you have the proof and evidence of God’s righteousness and power, and they are the foundation in the soul of every believer. If a believer has not the sense of that, he has no foundation, because he is more or less under the influence of all that is around. Like Israel in Egypt, he is in bondage to the world.
JSA And faith penetrates behind the veil and what is seen naturally, and it reaches that which is actually true before God.
WM It is remarkable that the very first principles of the gospel in that way would deliver you from the world and its principles.
FER I think so.
GWH I suppose that is the meaning of Romans 10: 9, “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved”.
FER Quite so. “For with heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”. You confess Christ as Lord.
GWH You believe in and are a demonstration to the power of God.
FER Quite so. You get that expression in the passage I read: “O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name”.
GWH That is the way deliverance from this present evil world is brought about.
FER [p. 206] Yes. By the knowledge of God. A christian gets nothing except by that, and if people do not get that they will not get anything.
JP That is the reason why the apostle says as to some at Corinth, “Some have not the knowledge of God”.
FER Evidently they had nothing.
JP Because it is the knowledge of God that really affects us.
FER And all blessing must lie in the knowledge of God. God has not yet come out in a public way as He will do in glory. He has come out in testimony, and hence it is that every blessing comes to us by the knowledge of God, according to that testimony.
GWH And the lack of this knowledge is the cause of our going contrary to God.
JP I suppose you would say faith receives the testimony and the Spirit of God makes it good in us.
FER Yes. The Spirit works in us by the knowledge of God.
JP We would grow by the true knowledge of God.
WM As you were saying recently, all our blessing consists in knowledge.
FER Yes; grace gives you righteousness. If you know the mercy of God, or God revealed in mercy, you come into salvation, and if you know the love of God you come into eternal life.
JP Yes; that is the way things stand in Scripture.
FER And that is the way things work in us. I only say that to show how every blessing that we talk of depends on the knowledge of God.
JP And the Scriptures abundantly sustain it: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”, and then “according to his mercy he saved us”, and “We love him because he first loved us”, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love”.
FER And we get the certificate of it.
JP It is very nice when we do [p. 207] get the certificate.
WM When was the righteousness of God perfectly established?
FER I think it was in the death of Christ. There you get the rights of God in mercy perfectly set forth.
JP “Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness”.
FER His blood. That is it. Resurrection declares His power.
JP And the Holy Spirit comes down to shed abroad His love.
WM Do you not think the rights of God were maintained in Christ here before His death?
FER His primary rights were without a question maintained, because He was the righteous One, but then that would not have been of much account to us.
JP Because you have to have redemption by the maintenance of His rights in mercy.
WM His primary rights would not have availed for us.
FER No.
JP Because the corn of wheat would have abode alone.
FER You know the old theological doctrine used to be held that Christ kept the law for us, and His law-keeping was given to us.
JP They distinguished between His active and His passive righteousness, and they said the former was imputed to us for our justification.
FER That was the common idea when I was young. It was what they called imputed righteousness. If a man is righteous he is righteous in a certain sense for himself let it be who it may.
JP So Christ is spoken of as the perfectly righteous One in regard to His walk and ways down here.
FER There was perfect righteousness in Him, but that was not available for us. He glorified God as a Man. He set forth what a perfect Man should be, just as He set forth what Israel should be, but that was not available [p. 208] to us; but then being divine, that is, having the rights of Creator, He had the power to accomplish redemption, and redemption is available to us. If Christ had been simply a man He could not have died for other men because He would not have had any right or title to other men. You could not die for me or I for you, because you have no right to me, but the case was entirely different in regard of Christ, “by him were all things created”. Therefore He could effect redemption for all.
JP Because the rights of redemption, like the rights of Creator belong to One who is divine.
FER Yes.
WM And the person who pays off the claim must be the owner of the property.
FER He is the only One who can take up the rights of redemption.
GWH We have righteousness imputed to us, have we not? What is the difference between righteousness imputed and imputed righteousness?
FER It all depends on what you mean by the expression. What is imputed righteousness? Nobody could tell you.
JP No wonder John Wesley said ‘imputed nonsense’.
FER Righteousness being accounted to a man is simply that he is accounted righteous.
WM We are accounted righteous in Christ.
FER Because we are brought into attachment.
GWH That is the first thing; the believer is established in righteousness.
FER Quite so. You are really brought into righteousness by the Spirit. But the point in these chapters is the way in which we are brought into the knowledge of God. It is not the question of us so much as of the way by which the believer is led into the knowledge of God.
GWH So it is the gospel of God.
FER The great point of importance to us here this morning is what are the first principles of the knowledge [p. 209] of God in the soul of the believer. I have no doubt whatever that what is essential to us is the knowledge of the righteousness and power of God in answer to all that you see around you, because in the eye of man God is powerless to a large extent. Other powers appear to prevail and God appears weak in the eye of man, and at the same time if I look abroad I can see no witness to the righteousness of God. You see lawlessness everywhere, and powers which apparently are greater in a kind of way than God. What we want before us is Christ — the mercy-seat. There it is you get God’s righteousness declared, and Christ is risen, and there it is you get God’s power declared. That is a very wonderful foundation.
JSA He is not only personally the righteous One but we are made the righteousness of God in Him.
WM And in that way He is the solution of every difficulty at the present time.
FER The practical meaning of it is, I learn this much — that my foundation is redemption, and at the same time that the power of God is toward me. That is a very wonderful thing. You have a solid foundation and the power of God is toward you. No man is badly off where that is the case.
JSA And that point is one in which God can not only meet me, but every man.
FER Quite so.
WM So that the knowledge of God is for every man, through redemption. Redemption is in the mind of God for all.
FER And righteousness in Israel was for the benefit of all men as a witness.
WM The might of God was to be known through them to the whole world.
FER That was God’s thought as to Israel.
JSA How would you establish that from Scripture? I see the point.
FER The world was to witness how blessed is the people whose God is Jehovah. Israel was to be like the [p. 210] dew from Jehovah on the face of the earth. That is the divine idea.
JP So in the world to come it is not that God will bring in anything new, but He will come out in power and glory, and establish what was ever before Him, and that will be the place of Israel then.
FER Exactly. They will be the light of the world. A city on a hill, all nations shall flow into it, as you get in Micah 4: 1 - 5. The law will go forth to all the nations. He is going to rebuke strong nations. How? Well really it is by insisting on peace. They are to beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks.
WM There will be no need for armaments.
JP It will be a rebuke because it will be a complete setting aside of their national policy.
FER It will be a setting aside of all that in which the power of man consists because the power of the Lord will go forth from Zion.
JP Now it is man’s glory; if they have a coronation they invite all their foreign princes to see their soldiers and naval parades.
FER All that is rebuked in the world to come. The particular light in which Christ comes out in Isaiah is “Peace”.
JA Because then the sin of Zion will be cleansed.
FER And He will make Israel to be His witnesses. I think it is a wonderful thing that God has come out in the rights of redemption. You see His righteousness does not come out in the way of judgement. That is not the way of it; nor does His power come out in the way of destruction. Both were possible to God. Righteousness might have come out in the case of Israel in the way of judgement, and the power of God in the way of destruction, the world being such as it was. Both were in the power of God — judgement and destruction.
JP The ways of God in the past plainly prove that they were both in His power.
FER But that is not the way God comes out. He [p. 211] declares His righteousness in redemption and His power in resurrection. That is a very wonderful thing to me, to think of the righteousness of God being declared in redemption. The old way was to set forth the righteousness of God against the grace of God, but really grace and righteousness are almost interchangeable terms. In Romans 3 if you read grace where righteousness is printed, it would be perfectly intelligible.
JP Being justified freely by His righteousness through the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
FER So; too, in the previous chapter. You get God setting forth a mercy-seat to declare His grace.
WM And God’s grace could not be displayed more than in the taking up the rights of mercy.
FER It is in the assertion of God’s rights that you get grace, but they are His rights, and if they are the rights of God they are the righteousness of God. Righteousness is simply rights. Theology has made terrible havoc as to the idea of righteousness. Righteousness is simply rights.
JP So when the Scriptures speak of God’s righteousness it means God’s rights.
FER And God has His proper rights in mercy, and God has set forth those rights in redemption, and redemption is the righteousness of God; that is the basis for us. You could not stand on any ground where God’s rights have not a place. It would not hold you; it would be a bog. You stand there and find you have the power of God toward you, and if the power of God is toward you, you are not afraid of death nor of the enemy.
JP So it may well read, “being justified by faith, we have peace”.
FER Yes; we have peace, access, and everything in that chapter.
JSA And a long way back there was the intimation of it when He said, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy”.
GWH And He was righteous in [p. 212] having mercy.
FER Simply because of redemption, and therefore mercy was the right of God. It is a trick of infidels to make out that vicarious suffering is unrighteous. That is not the truth of Scripture. The truth of Scripture is really this, that God by the very fact of His being Creator of all had the right of redemption; that man having come under certain liabilities by reason of his own act, God as Creator had the right and title to take up the liabilities. That is the truth of things, and there it is you get the righteousness of God.
WM What an amazing meaning it gives to grace!
GWH You do not use the term mercy as synonymous with the term grace.
FER Not exactly. Redemption is the rights of God in mercy. Grace is more God’s approach to man consequent on redemption.
JSA All things were not only mad by Him but for Him, so that-intensifies His claim. In the arguments of infidels they have no sense that Christ is God, and therefore all their argument is fallacious. God passed over the sins of David and others because He intended to come out in the rights of mercy, and hence it was that instead of David coming under the judgement of God and being cut off, God forbore to do that; He had His ways before Him and He intended to come out in mercy.
WM And the cross declares all that.
GWH He declares His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God.
FER Exactly; in regard of that.
WM And now redemption is in the Head for every man.
FER Quite so. You get the Head coming in in the latter part of chapter 5. You have not the Head here yet. I do think it is a point of such immense importance to every one of us that we should have a distinct sense of the ground on which we stand. Nothing can be more vitally important than that, and the ground on which we stand [p. 213] is the righteousness of God. If you speak of the righteousness of God in its first and primary sense, you could not stand on that ground any more than Israel could; but when I come to apprehend that God has set forth His rights in redemption, then I say I can stand well enough on that ground because it is mercy. Then when I stand on that ground the power of God is toward me; I have a foundation, and the power of God is toward me. Therefore I do not fear any enemy. These are the first two principles of the knowledge of God. They answer in a kind of way to the blood in Egypt which was the witness of the mercy of God, and to the power of God that delivered them at the Red Sea. Do you not see that the Red Sea was smitten, and the people passed through, and in passing through the sea they were delivered from the hand of the enemy?
WM And in that way the power of God was toward them.
FER Yes.
GWH So they could say on the banks, “he is become my salvation”.
FER Yes. “Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation”.
JP I suppose in a way these things were more simply set forth and understood among believers in the beginning than now. So much has to come in to obscure all this.
FER Yes; I think theology has obscured it.
JP I was thinking how simply the saints in the epistles are appealed to, “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again”.
FER The great thing is to take things up morally.
JP We may fancy we have cast things now into a mould that is perfect, but there is no power in it; but there is power in the knowledge of God.
FER Because there is one great principle in regard to the knowledge of God. Everything before God is right,
[p. 214] so I would teach my child, if I could, what is right, not doctrine.
WM What will commend itself to their consciences.
FER There are things that are right, the righteousness of God and His power are right. When man gets power he makes the grossest misuse of it. Look at Napoleon.
JP Take the popes who use it in an ecclesiastical way.
FER A great failure they make of it. So, too, everything that comes out in the revelation of God is right, and you can see that it is right. It is not doctrine or creed. Creed may be right or it may be wrong.
WM I suppose these principles are set forth in Moses’ rod. Power becomes satanic in the serpent, and taken up again it became the rod of God.
JSA God is good, and He doeth good as the Scripture says.