Bible Study Romans Part 14-The Most Unique Person in History

Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel.

God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries.

We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God.

We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day.

The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold, and we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture.

Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible.

It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision.

Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us.

It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word.

We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death.

In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death.

Never treat what God has said lightly.

There is truly nothing more important to you.

Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

Scripture has been given to us for a very important reason.

Have you ever wondered why we have the Bible?

Have you ever wondered why God has allowed the Bible to persist all the way through to this day?

Men have died and bled for this book to get it into our hands.

And the purpose behind it is to help us to get to know him.

And that's what we're doing in this letter to the Romans.

Paul is masterful at being able to describe the gospel.

And when you understand the gospel, it is sort of the entranceway into getting to know the Son and the Father and the relationship between the two.

And once we have been saved, then we are in Christ.

And when we are in Christ, then we get to know the Father like He does.

And that's what we're trying to do every time we teach on our Bible studies is to get to light that fire inside you to want to know your Savior better and his Father.

So that's what we're doing.

We are in the book of Romans.

We are still in the first chapter of the letter to the Romans.

I say the book of Romans, that's sort of the traditional way of saying it, but it is actually a letter, a letter that Paul wrote to the church in Rome.

That's what we've been studying now for some time.

We will be doing it for years, believe me.

So Romans 1:1.

Romans 1:1

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised before by his prophets in holy scriptures, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.

Now I've repeatedly mentioned that the first seven verses of chapter one of the letter to the Romans comprise only one complete sentence.

And the reason it's important for me to keep reminding you of that fact becomes apparent right here.

When you approach scripture like we do in a very meticulous, very microscopic way, you risk sometimes losing context.

We spend so much time looking intently at words or phrases or parts of sentences that it can cause us to lose the overall meaning.

Now, I don't apologize for that.

I don't mind taking that risk because the reward is so potentially significant.

Our approach gives us an intimacy with the subject matter that leads to a greater appreciation of the things of God.

However, as with all risky endeavors, one must be prepared for the potential dangers.

So my strategy is to read and reread our texts in an effort to preserve in our minds the big picture.

Here in this first part of the jam-packed first sentence, we have Paul presenting to us a telling contrast in verse three.

And that's why I brought up this whole idea that it's one sentence and why we have to keep going over it is so that we can pick up on the contrast that Paul is pointing out to us.

In verse three, he's reminding us that Jesus was made the seed of David, just by way of another quick, somewhat unrelated reminder.

The way this is structured and the way it hits our ears is that he was something first, and then he was made something else while retaining the thing he was before.

That's very confusing, but that's part of the problem when we are trying to make divine things crammed into our mortal brains.

And that is a critical element to your full understanding of this verse, as well as your full understanding of your Lord and what he has accomplished for you.

You have to understand he was made.

He started out something else, and then he was made something else, while at the same time retaining the previous status.

He was infinitely before this, he was infinitely before this made the seed event, the divine second person of the Trinity, the divine, eternal son of God.

The world, though, didn't actually know that until it was made aware through the declaration of the resurrection.

Nevertheless, he was made the seed.

But for his whole earthly life, the world only knew him in the flesh, as it were.

That is the first part of the contrast.

Then the most spectacular event in human history comes about.

And no, it wasn't the birth of that babe in the manger.

That's still the first part of the contrast.

The resurrection happens, and the world is now put on notice that the seed of David is actually the son of God.

They didn't know that before.

They thought he was just a son of David.

The resurrection demonstrated that they were wrong and corrected them.

The resurrection declared that this maid of the seed of David, according to the flesh guy, was also the son of God.

But not only that, the resurrection declared that Jesus was also according to the spirit of holiness.

That is Paul's contrast.

Not the Holy Spirit, but rather a spirit who possesses holiness.

That is what Paul is telling us.

And that is precisely who we need him to be.

That's what makes this so special and so important.

I hope you haven't forgotten the fact that Paul is still describing the gospel of God.

He's still telling you why this is the good news of God.

Remember, that's what Paul was separated unto.

That was what was promised afore by God's prophets in holy scriptures.

Yes, we're still talking about that.

In fact, now we're getting quite specific.

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets and holy scriptures, concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.

The gospel is concerning, is about the fact that God's Son Jesus, we needed him to be God's son, was made of the seed of David.

We needed him to be of the seed of David.

We needed him to become a man.

We needed the son of God to become a man.

And he was declared to be the son of God with power.

We needed him to be powerful, not just a powerless human being like us.

We all know how it is to be without power, and declared according to the spirit of holiness.

We needed that spirit of holiness to remain intact for all of this to work out.

We needed Jesus.

We desperately needed for Jesus to be holy the entire time he was here.

And he was.

That, my friends, is the whole gospel.

If someone wants to know what the gospel is, if someone comes up to you and says, What is the gospel?

Tell them to read the first four verses of the letter to the Romans.

It's all there.

That is the gospel.

Okay, great.

Can we close the book and go home?

No, wait a second.

It's going to take a lot more than just saying it, though that's a good start.

We have to demonstrate and proof all of that, but again, saying it is the right thing to begin with.

So let's list out and expand upon these things we need.

First of all, Son of God.

We needed that because the mess Adam got us into, we cannot get ourselves out of.

That's for sure.

Adam, the best created man there ever was, failed.

And God's not going to accept failure, but he can't just create another Adam to get us out of this, because the next created Adam won't have anything more than the first one did.

So similar results should be expected.

Yes, it has to be a man, but not just any man, which leads us to the second thing we said we needed, which Paul brought up in a statement about the gospel of God.

He was made of the seed of David.

Now, this one we could go on about for hours, but we won't.

We'll condense it as best we can.

You see, the sole problem with the world, the only problem with the world is sin.

Are you telling me there's one problem with the world?

I am telling you that.

When God created the world, it was perfect and it would have stayed perfect had not sin entered in.

We are so corrupt as a race, and the world is so cursed that we can't believe there's really only one problem.

Well, there is.

And I want you to stop and think about everything that impacts you and think about how it all traces back to that one piece of fruit.

It's sin.

The sole obstacle to our reunification with the Father is sin.

Sin entered in and created a barrier between God and his created companions.

Being on the opposite side of the barrier from the creator of all things means all the rest of us go, all the rest of this goes to pot, as they say.

So sin has to be dealt with.

Sin stands between us and it must be dealt with.

And God cannot be God and just he cannot be God and just forgive sin.

If he forgives sin, he's not God.

If he forgives sin, then his justice would be called into question.

He will not turn his back on his own justice no matter what.

But if he does nothing about sin, then the devil gets the victory, and God won't allow that either.

So since sin can't be forgiven nor ignored, it has to be defeated.

Now, how are you going to do that, God?

Well, since for sin comes death, the wages of sin are death, that means there is an unpaid debt of sin hanging around out there that can only be paid for with blood.

Now, complicating things is the fact that sin is an exclusively human thing.

No other creature ever sins.

No other creature ever made sins.

So the game plan for defeating sin has to include mankind.

God couldn't send a donkey who will never sin for us because it has to take a man.

And that's why Jesus had to become a man.

Only a man can defeat sin.

Only a human can pay a human debt.

Again, this is the only way God can preserve his justice.

He will not break his own rules.

And every time I tell you that, I remind you that you can trust a God like that.

You can count on someone who refuses at all costs to betray what is right.

And listen, he's the one that gets to decide what's right.

If he wanted to, he could rewrite what's right because no one can challenge him except himself.

You can trust someone like that worth repeating.

So although this is a human debt, no ordinary human will be able to do what has to be done.

This is a job for a son of God, a son of God only.

But son of God had to pay a human debt.

Therefore, Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son of God, was made of the seed of David.

Now I hope over the years I've been able to convince you, or someone has been able to convince you, that this debt would be the only reason the Father and the Son went through this.

I say that because so many Christians have completely missed the point.

They think that Jesus came to earth, went through the horror and the pain of becoming a human just to send a message, a message that we already had.

So many think that the purpose, the value that Jesus gives us is his example, the way he lived his life.

That he and the Father came up with all this just so that we could have someone to look up to, someone we could emulate, someone who could help us to be good simply by being a model of goodness.

Well, I can all I can say is that cannot possibly be the case.

It is neither scriptural nor practical.

Listen to me.

And those things, those written things, proved absolutely ineffective in changing the way humans behave.

Now, forgive the oversimplified explanation, but I have to condense this because I because I have other things to say.

Jesus would not have put himself and the Father through all of that simply to repeat what others had said and done many times over.

There had to be a bigger reason for becoming of the seed of David.

And of course, there was.

And he did that in the spirit of holiness.

You see, Jesus had to live a completely holy life, a completely sin-free life in order to allow the law to pass away as our judge.

It doesn't go away.

It's still God's standard, but it goes away as our judge.

We are no longer under it, as Paul puts it elsewhere.

The debt was sin.

Sin demanded death under that law.

Jesus died to pay that debt, though he didn't owe it.

He, now this is the gospel of God, Jesus maintained his spirit of holiness and retained his son of God status and reconciled mankind to God.

That's good news.

But listen, it's good news that we can never fully grasp, not in this life, anyhow.

Now we can we could go on, and I want to go on, but let's keep moving.

Back to Romans 1:1.

Romans 1:1

Pauli, servant of Jesus Christ.

I'm sure if I'm looking out at you, you're mouthing right along with me, because I'm sure this is already burned into your minds.

Pauli, servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised before by his prophets and holy scriptures concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.

The confidence with which Paul shares history's most perplexing human mind-blowing reality is staggering.

In this statement, Paul is sharing that the world sharing what the world considered utter nonsense.

In essence, Paul is describing, listen, because this is in essence what he's saying.

Paul is describing someone who is both a man and a God, fleshy and divine.

In the flesh, he's holy, and in the spirit, he's holy.

At this moment, Jesus is the most unique being in history, in the universe.

He is fully man with a glorified body.

Now, don't ask me to describe What a glorified body is, because I can't.

All I know is he has one and I get one of those one of these days.

You will too, as long as you have trusted him.

You say you don't believe me?

Fine, let me present the evidence.

1 John 3 2.

I know.

Listen, it's hard to believe.

It's too wonderful to believe.

But here we go.

1 John 3 2.

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.

Isn't that wonderful?

But that part is not for some time yet.

And besides, it's not my primary point.

I want to focus on the absolute uniqueness of our Savior.

He is fully man and fully God.

As wonderful as it is for you and I to have that glorified body, we'll never get to that point.

Jesus is the only one who will ever have this dual nature.

And not to be tedious, but it is in that dual nature that all our hope resides.

And listen, Paul almost casually lays this incredible truth down to us, and he's still in an introduction.

So much more we can say about this, but I think that's probably enough for now.

In fact, although it will make this a short lesson tonight, why don't we end it here?

Much bigger topic just on the horizon.

We'll get started on it next time.

See you then.

We hope this study has blessed you.

God's word is a great treasure, and it's our belief that a thorough, purposeful study of it will bring all of God's children to an understanding of his eternal plan of redemption.

It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners.

Please join us again soon.

New content is being added all the time, so make sure you check back often.

For more information on Chapel Ministries, including our YouTube channel and podcasts, please visit www.chapelontheweb.com.

And if God has laid it upon your heart to share materially with us, we encourage you to follow the links to our secure giving page.

Please note, Chapel Ministries is not an IRS registered nonprofit organization, and your donations to this program are not tax deductible.

It's our hope that you do not rely on taxing authorities to decide for you who is worthy of your generosity.