ROMANS 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
ROMANS 1 (NOTES OF A READING)
Ques What is the great feature of this epistle?
CAC God.
Rem I am not surprised to hear you say so; there are so many things predicated of God in these chapters, are there not?
CAC Yes.
Rem It is a great matter that the first thing mentioned in relation to God is the glad tidings.
CAC I suppose in a certain sense this is the greatest of all the epistles, and perhaps the least known among the people of God. I say the greatest because it is the presentation of divine Persons and how God reaches His end in relation to His fallen creature man. It shows the blessed God in His own thoughts and His own movements altogether unaffected by what has happened to man. He pursues His own way and reaches His own end without any contribution from man whatever. That man is depicted in such a dreadful state is just to enhance the presentation of God. The glad tidings are concerning His Son; all hinges on Christ for the recovery of man.
Rem Many think that the gospel is about themselves.
CAC That is a great hindrance. The gospel is so great, and so entirely divine, that nothing but faith could take it in, and faith is just as much of God as the glad tidings.
This epistle was written to a company of believers. It is the greatest possible advantage to us that we should have the glad tidings of God presented as they were known to Paul — “My glad tidings”, as he says — and he links it on with the Old Testament, showing that the gospel had been the subject of promise. Peter has told us that all the prophets since time began have spoken of these things.
Ques Why does he mention the [p. 397] gentile company?
CAC I suppose it is to show that this was what God had in mind from the very beginning, that whatever was spoken to men had reference to it. The Old Testament was full of prophetic announcements of what God would bring in, and it was largely the history of men who were types of Christ; the Old Testament Scriptures were in content largely typical of Christ.
Rem The gospel is so great that it has to wait for God to bring it out.
CAC So that God Himself had to be here in the Person of His Son before any of it could be realised, and Christ is seen not only as the fulfilment of all the promises, but as the One who is heir to all the promises. As has often been said, the promises all centre in Christ both as to their fulfilment and as to the One who is possessed of them. He is the One to whom the promises are made; there are no promises to the fallen man.
The glad tidings are not a kind of remedy, a patching up, but something that is entirely new — the bringing in of what is wholly of God. Scripture speaks of Christ as the Seed to whom the promises were made. The promises were all made to Christ.
Ques I thought the promises were made to the Jew?
CAC Give a sample of one of those promises.
Rem “Who are Israelites; whose is ... the promises” (Romans 9: 4).
CAC If you think of the promises made to the Jew, what has become of them? They crucified the One in whom all the promises were substantiated, and Christ has all the promises in resurrection; He holds them in the power of redemption. We only get them in Christ. No promises are made to me, they are all made to Christ.
Rem So the Jews said after Peter’s preaching in Acts 2, “What shall we do, brethren?”
CAC And he said, ‘The only thing you can do is to be buried! Let me bury you out of sight’.
[p. 398] So that faith is the great principle of the first four chapters of Romans; and faith takes hold of divine Persons. Faith takes hold of God and takes hold of Christ; it does not think anything about itself. We are not called upon to believe anything about ourselves; we are only called on to believe what God is, and what Christ is, in the glad tidings, and man’s case is hopeless outside God. It is wonderful to think the blessed God has brought in One who can take up everything, so that there can be unlimited blessing, but it is all in Christ; it is Christ who is exalted and made wonderful, not the first man. When God said prophetically that David was a man after His own heart who should do all His will, He was not thinking of David, He was thinking of Christ. David was not a man after God’s own heart and he did not do all God’s will, we know it was the reverse, but as a type of Christ he represented the beloved One who was after God’s own heart and who did all His will; and that is made known in the glad tidings.
Rem The worst possible view of man is brought out here in these chapters.
CAC And God has brought in His kingdom. There would be no need for the kingdom if there were no evil here, but its presence made it necessary, and He brought it in in His beloved Son. He was untouchable by evil, Satan could not touch Him when here. Then He went to the cross to suffer for sins, and then He was loosed from the pains of death, so that men might be loosed from the pains of death and brought into life and blessing.
Rem The fall really only magnified God.
CAC The wonderful thing is that Adam in innocence did not need God as we do, he should have been perfectly satisfied in the surroundings in which he was placed. We need Him in a far deeper way, and our knowledge of God and the resulting blessing is infinitely greater than Adam’s. ‘O happy fault’, Augustine truly said in speaking of the fall. It opened the door for God to make Himself known to His wretched fallen creature in marvellous blessing. It is a [p. 399] wonderful thing to get the conception of a wonderful Person coming in on behalf of man, One who was untouchable by sin, who was “according to the Spirit of holiness”; and everything I am and everything I have is bound up in that Person. The only thing that has any value in man is faith, and he would not have any if God had not given it. So that if God sees it in a human heart, He knows He has put it there.
Ques Would you say something about “marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead”?
CAC Well, is not resurrection the great manifestation that He is the Son of God? There was evidence of it when He was here on earth, when He walked on the water. Afterwards when He entered the ship, the disciples said, “Truly thou art God’s Son” (Matthew 14: 33). They saw something of the power of resurrection in Him; a Man who could walk on the water is superior to everything here. And it is very remarkable that at the cross the centurion and those with him said, “Truly this man was Son of God” (Matthew 27: 54).
Ques Are we to arrive at that in heart?
CAC I think we have not really got the gospel until we arrive at a true thought of His holy Person, and His relationship with God as Son. It is marvellous that the Gentiles should see the evidence of that when He died, and it is seen in His resurrection. It pleases me to think that the ones to be converted first after His death were a little company of Gentiles. It intimates that when the veil was rent from the top to the bottom God was ready to come out to Gentiles who had no claim on the promises at all. It says, “The centurion, and they who were with him” (Matthew 27: 54). I see something very special in it. I do not think the Holy Spirit would have recorded it if it had not been genuine. Think of those rough Roman soldiers being brought into the light of the Son of God having gone into death — how wonderful! It just shows how the heart of God was overflowing according to its own bent — and of course, they had not the light of resurrection.
[p. 400] Now, the great testimony to His Person is resurrection. He is marked out “Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead”. I think that has reference to His own resurrection. The word (i.e. the dead) is plural but I think His own resurrection is in view. I am confirmed in that thought by Acts 26: 23 where Paul says that nothing else was the subject of his testimony but those things which the prophets and Moses said should happen, “namely, whether Christ should suffer; whether he first, through resurrection of the dead, should announce light both to the people and to the nations”. The very same expression is used there, and it is evidently limited to His own resurrection. There is no true light for men now except through resurrection. The plural being used, I think, shows that His resurrection in another sense cannot be limited to His own resurrection. I see no difficulty in it, I see a beauty in it; His resurrection cannot be limited, it will extend to all saints. It is the place that all that believe in Christ will be raised to. If the pains of death were loosed for Him, then the pains of death will be loosed for them. And that is really the gospel; it is God saying, ‘All that is made good in Christ is for you’. It is as if God would immediately give a testimony that the resurrection of Christ would reach to the saints. It was actually participated in by the saints who rose after His resurrection. I am certain they did not go back to their graves. With those who were raised in His lifetime it was not truly resurrection but resuscitation. The truth of resurrection was never manifested until it was manifested in the Son of God Himself; and in the gospel the preachers continually stress the resurrection of Christ as the testimony to who He is. If people see who He is they will on believe on Him. The great point here is, He is risen. Romans does not bring before us His ascension of His being seated in heaven, except for a reference to His intercession in chapter S. What we want souls to see is this wonderful Person. If they get a sight of Him they are believers, they cannot help it. Seeing is believing. Even if the [p. 401] preacher says nothing about them or their state, they will go out of the room happy, because they know a Person they never knew before. We should like so to present that Person that there was no fault on our side. No one will see Him without faith, and God gives that. No amount of persuading will ever give anybody faith. If man is fallen and lost, how do you think that man is going to believe God? He never will. Faith follows new birth. New birth precedes faith, and faith is the result of that. Faith comes by a report, and the report by God’s word. There is nothing which can value God’s word unless God has produced faith in the soul by His work. Man is tested now as to whether he is at all disposed to obey God. If he is not he must perish eternally, there is nothing else for him. The law tested whether men would obey God, but the law was not nearly so great a test as the gospel. The gospel proposes the most wonderful things — that men should be saved, justified, reconciled and set in God’s favour eternally. Would he like to obey God? No, he will not! If God does not effect a very great change in man it could never come to pass. If the natural man could come into obedience, it would prove man was not lost. Those in whom there is a work of God value the gospel; those who are not born anew do not value it, they see nothing in it. It is important to see that faith is not of the natural man at all, it is of God. We believe to live. New birth is never presented in Scripture as life. It gives capacity for faith, and faith is the means of our coming into life. “The just shall live by faith”, we live on that principle. Faith brings the very ingredients of life into the soul, it brings the knowledge of God. It is as God has His place and Christ has His place in the soul that I live, and that comes about as the result of faith. It is a new beginning; it is what puzzled Nicodemus, “Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3: 3). That is, he cannot see anything that is written in the epistle to the Romans unless he is born again. It is impossible that the natural man could see one single thing in this epistle!
[p. 402] The natural man is responsible, and is so in regard of every single ray of light that comes to him. He is not blessed on that line, but on the line of what God has brought in and done. Faith is the mighty operation of God in the soul giving light as to what He is and as to the salvation in Christ. So that the light of Christ is the very life of the soul.
Rem God would be ready to give faith to anyone. He gives repentance; it says, “To give repentance to Israel” (Acts 5: 31).
CAC It is man’s responsibility to repent — the only thing that God calls on men to do. Apart from God’s work, preaching will not have any effect. “Ye will not come to me”, the Lord said (John 5: 40). No man becomes a child of God by an act of his own will. All are under sin, it says here; where is there any free-will there? It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance; it is well designed to do it, but not apart from the work of God in the soul. There is no genuine repentance apart from the work of God. And if God makes Himself available as a Saviour God, and His Son available, and the death and resurrection of Christ available for blessing, well, if a man despises that, what a terrible thing it is.
Repentance is that I judge myself in the light of all I know of God and of Christ through the glad tidings. The natural man does not desire it. “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways!” (Job 21: 14). The whole secret of blessing lies in the purpose of God to bless, and He is not going to be thwarted in His purpose to bless His own elect.