Dear Brother Rjones, Sister Maureen and those who are studying with us:
Greetings to all of you. I'm very sorry for the delay I have made, but after April 16th, it will be holidays for me and I will be free for sometime.
Brother Rjones, I have enjoyed your posts and I continue to pray for your family. By the way, I want to know, what is the meaning of IOU in your post? Could you please tell me.
Sister Maureen, I continue to pray for your husband and your children.
Here is my post on
Romans 3:21-31.
Romans 3:21-22:
Verse 21: But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago.
Verse 22: We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.
In our previous discussion, we have seen very clearly that:
1) The law has revealed the knowledge of sin.
2) Every man will be condemned based on the law. Man can never be made right in God's sight through the law.
So God has shown us a new way of being right in His sight. Please see this thread (I don't know if I shared this with you):
http://www.talkjesus.com/bible-study-hall/16591-grace.html (Click the thread)
No matter what we have done, no matter how bad, terrible and evil we are, we can be made right in God's sight through faith in Jesus Christ, to take away our sins.
Romans 3:23-24:
Verse 23: For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
Verse 24: Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins.
I believe there is nothing more we can explain and elaborate from these two verses. It is absolutely clear and in our previous study of Romans and revelations, I have given a reference to
Romans 3:23 in particular.
Now, we obviously don't have the right to call ourselves sinless from birth. In other words, this is nothing but self righteousness which the pharisees and scribes were infected with during the time of Jesus. Of course, unfortunately many people in the Church (as a whole) today have the same bondage the Pharisees and Scribes were bonded to in spiritual terms.
Romans 3:25-26:
Verse 25: For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times.
Verse 26: And he is entirely fair and just in this present time when he declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus.
These two verses are absolutely clear as well. Nothing more can be brought out more simpler than what Paul the Apostle mentioned. In fact these verses, give us the strength and the motivation to tell everyone about what Jesus did for us.
Romans 3:27-28:
Verse 27: Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith.
Verse 28: So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.
Of course we definitely don't have the right to say that because of our deeds we are acceptable in God's sight. Now I don't know if I mentioned this point earlier in our study or not, but if I didn't, this is what I want to say:
In fact many times whenever we do good deeds, the enemy tempts us inside and if we are not careful, we will develop a spiritual ego problem (we tend to become proud of our good deeds).
Now let me come to another point, when we accept Jesus Christ into our heart, when He forgives our sins (in other words we are born again), this doesn't mean that we have a free license to sin. When God made us right in His sight, He didn't want us to have a motive that anything goes, but He wants us to live our life
new.
Romans 3:29-30:
Verse 29: After all, God is not the God of the Jews only, is He? Isn’t He also the God of the Gentiles? Of course He is.
Verse 30: There is only one God, and there is only one way of being accepted by Him. He makes people right with Himself only by faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.
Now again, Paul the apostle relates his focus between the Jews and the gentiles, much like what he did in
Romans 2 and
Romans 3:1-4 & 9 No matter in which family we are born, there is only one way to heaven and it is through Jesus Christ.
Romans 3:31: Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law.
Here Paul the Apostle wants to remind us that God's grace is not meant for us to have a free license to sin, but to obey what God has commanded us to do in the law. We will be coming across this same point in
Romans 6, I think.
I will post a study on
faith shortly in a new thread, I have to still prepare the notes for it.
God bless you. Any more points to discuss?