- The Problem of Evil
- The Purpose in creation and the fall of man
- The Suffering and death of the innocent
- Trouble and trials in the life of the believer
- The Destiny of Children
Saw some of the great themes of Romans 5:
- The Sovereignty of God – Gods Power
- The Sufficiency or Superabundance of Gods Grace – Gods Plan
- The Sin of man – Gods Purpose
- The Sovereignty of God – Gods Power
God is in control! Gods grace / plan of salvation is not:
- A Response
- A Reaction
- A Reflex
to mans problems / plight but Gods plan of salvation is:
The Reason
behind all of the problems!
A week or so ago the cars hand brake broke and so I took it to the garage to get it fixed. Human reasoning says I got the handbrake fixed because it was broken! Romans 5 reasoning says the handbrake was broken so that it could be fixed!
A couple of days ago I got fed up with the loft looking a mess and so I tidied it. Human reasoning says that because the loft was a mess I tidied it but Romans 5 reasoning says that the loft was a mess so that it could be tidied!
ie. the solution precedes the problem in Romans 5! The reason for the problem is that the solution, Gods plan of salvation may be brought into action! We may well question that kind of reasoning, for after all what is the point of something being broken simply that it mught be fixed or in something being a mess that it might be tidied? What is the purpose in Adams sin and the fall and the great work of salvation simply so that God should bring us back to where we started in the garden of Eden? The answer of course is that God in the out working of His plan and purpose does not bring us bac to where we started at all, He takes us beyond where we have ever been before! God takes us in the closing chapter of His book in the final analysis not to Eden but to a place:
- Where there is no tree of knowledge of good and evil
- Where there is no serpent
- Where nought that defileth shall enter there in
- Where sin and earth and tears have been abolished eternally!
- He has moved us from enjoying the “streams” (Ps 46:4) from being in a place through which the river flows through in 4 branches (Gen2:10) to the very source of that river Himself (Rev22:1).
- In so doing He brings us to Himself!
In Adam we were His by Creation In Christ we are His by Redemption
In Adam we are His by right In Christ we are His by choice
In Adam we are His by creatorial power In Christ we are His by sacrificial passion
Gods great work of salvation has changed our relationship with Him.
Gods great work of salvation has changed our resemblance to Him:
- “faith” (5:1)
- “hope” (5:4,5)
- “love” (5:5)
now marks His people in a way that Adam was never marked by them simply by virtue of His creation.
- “faith” (5:1) – Adam had faith to believe in God as his creator of course! No doubts or questions here about the possibility of evolution or aliens from outer space seeding earth with the germ of life! But when it came to trusting God implicitly over His motives and instructions Adam failed (Gen3:4,5). As Gods redeemed people we know that He can be completely trusted over all aspects of life, time and eternity, past and present and future for we know Him as the God who “spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all...” we can trust Him with a faith unclouded and unquestioned.
- “hope” (5:4,5) – Our hope is a keener, fresher and realer hope than Adam ever had: we can look back at the problems of life, the plan of salvation, the plight of man, knowing that the God who has been sufficient for all of that will be sufficient likewise for the future. This hope, our hope is founded upon concrete experience of a real and living Saviour.
- “love” (5:5) – As NT believers we are privileged to learn more of Gods love in 1 verse of scripture than Adam had opportunity to learn in the whole of His 950 years: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1Jn 4:10)
These 3 abiding qualities mark Gods people right the way through the Word of God: 1Co 13:13; 1Thess1:3; 1Thess3:10-13; 1Peter1:7; 2Peter 1:5-7. The Sufficiency or Superabundance of Gods Grace – Gods Plan
Gods Grace is the Pathway to Gods Glory:
- Gods Glory Mocked (Rom1:23)
- Gods Glory Missed (Rom3:23)
- Gods Glory Mine (Rom5:2)
The Sin of man – What was Gods Purpose in allowing man the opportunity to sin in the garden of Eden?
The problem of evil:
This greatest of Theological problems arises out of the answer to a set of straightforward questios:
- Did God create everything? - Yes – He is Creator!
- Did God create the garden of Eden, Adam, the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the serpent? - Surely
- Did God know what was going to happen? - certainly He is omniscient
Why did God allow it to happen? God did not permit all of this to happen simply to get us back to where we started – there would be no point in that at all! By the problems of life and Gods plan of salvation He takes us beyond where we have ever been before! We no longer simply belong to Adam, we now belong to Christ
Gods Purpose Preceeds mans Problem:
- “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Rom5:6)
- “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
- “when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son,”
- “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.” (Rom5:14) – Adam was but the shadow and Christ the Substance, Adam but the figure and Christ the fullness!
Gods Purpose Precedes mans Problem! Gods purpose worked out over 6000 years, 66 books, 40 prophets and 1 supreme sacrifice – that of His Son was purposed ever before mans problem arose and does not simply take us back to the beginning again!
In Genesis 1 we were His by Design
In Rev 22 I am His by Desire – I am His and He is mine! Not because I have to be but because I want to be and because He wants me to be too!
I have chosen Him over this world, the flesh and the Devil
He has chosen me even at the cost of His own blood!
Does God bring me back to where we went wrong! Not a bit of it!
https://graceinchrist.org/romans
Posts
