“What Is a Christian?” Part 33” by Romans
We are continuing in our Series, "What Is A Christian?" And we are continuing to review and examine Faith as a vital aspect of our being a Christian. Last week we looked at James' epistle admonishing us who lack wisdom, and that would be all of us, to not only pray for wisdom, but also to do so in Faith, nothing wavering. Faith, we learned, is “key” where answers to prayer are concerned. If one prays without Faith, “... let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord” (James 1:7).
Jesus laid this same Truth down decades before James wrote his epistle. After the disciples marvelled when they saw the fig tree withered after Jesus had cursed it, Jesus said: "Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” ( Matthew 21:21-22).
The Sermon Bible says of this, "These words are said to us as God’s children. This is the one condition of our asking and having. "Ask," our good Lord would say, "your Father as His children, believing in Him, trusting in Him, hoping in Him, trusting yourselves with Him."
I. It is not, then, said to those who will not live as God’s children. He who will not live as God’s child makes himself wiser than God. He chooses what God chooses not; he frames to himself a world of his own, and makes its laws for himself. He contradicts or disbelieves the goodness of God, in that he chooses what God refuses, refuses what God chooses.
II. It is not said as to things which we cannot ask as God’s children. To covet passionately the things of this life, even without actual sin; to long to be above those around us; to desire to be admired, thought of; to have a smooth easy course, to be without trial,—this is not the temper of God’s children. To gain these things might be to lose the soul.
III. We are not children of our heavenly Father if we forgive not from our hearts each other their trespasses; and therefore any secret grudge, any mislike of another, any rankling memory of injury, hinders our prayer being heard.
IV. If we ask not earnestly, we either do not really want what we ask for, or we mistrust that God will give it, and do not really look to Him as our Father.
V. There are many degrees of asking, many degrees of obtaining. God willeth to win thee to ask of Him. He will often give us things more than we could look for, that we may remember how He heareth prayers, and ask Him for what He is yet more ready to give, because it is more precious for our eternal good. He draws us on as earthly parents do their children to trust Him in a more simple, childlike way.
Pray, and thou shalt know that God will hear thy prayers. Pray as thou canst, and pray that thou mayest pray better. The gates of heaven are ever open that thou mayest go in and out at thy will. He Himself, to whom thou prayest, prayeth for thee, by His voice, by His love, by His blood. How can we fail to be heard, when, if we wish, God the Holy Spirit will pray in us, and He to whom we pray is more ready to give than we to ask? E. B. Pusey, Sermons for the Church’s Seasons, p. 372.”
In another Sermon titled, The Miracles of Prayer, we read, “Can man change the mind of God? Will God, on the prayer of man, change any part of that wondrous order which He has impressed on His fair, visible creation?
I. God does through man’s acts become other to him than He was before. The returned soul knows that not only is its whole self changed towards God, but that the relations and actions of God towards it are also changed. And this change has often been wrought by Jesus through the prayers of others. Which are greatest, the miracles of nature or the miracles of grace?
Which is the greatest interference (to use men’s word)—to change passive, unresisting nature, or man’s strong, energetic, resisting will, which God Himself so respects that He will not force the will which He has endowed with freedom, that it might have the bliss freely to choose Himself?
And yet these stupendous spiritual miracles are daily renewed. The love of the Church, of the pastor, the mother, the combined prayers of those whom God has inspired with the love of souls, draw down on the prodigal soul many a wasted or half-wasted grace, until at last God in His providence has laid the soul open to the influence of His grace, and the soul, obstructing no more the access to Divine grace, is converted to God and lives.
II. Whether the whole sequence of natural phenomena follow a fixed order of Divine law impressed once for all upon his creation by the almighty fiat of God, or whether the proximate causes of which we are cognizant are the result of the ever-present action of the Divine will, independently of any such system—these are but the ways of acting of the Omniscient.
The difficulty lies in the Omniscience itself, which knew all things which were not as though they were.
Who doubts but that God knew beforehand that awful winter which cut off half a million of the flower of French chivalry? But whether that winter, which stood alone in the history of Russian climate, came only in the natural sequel of some fixed laws, or whether it was owing to the immediate fiat of God, the adaptation of these natural phenomena to the chastisement of that suffering host was alike exact, the free agency of its leader was alike unimpaired.
III. Once more, the availableness of prayer has been contrasted with the availableness of human remedies; its unavailableness has been insisted upon, if combined with human sloth. Who bade separate trust in God from the exertions of duty? Certainly not He who, even in His highest concerns,—the salvation of our souls,—bade us work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in us, to will and to do of His good pleasure.
IV. One soul there is for which thy prayers are absolutely infallible—thine own. Before thou hast uttered the prayer, so soon as through the grace of God thou hast conceived it in thy heart and embraced it in thy will, it has ascended to the Eternal throne.
Already it has been presented to Him who in all eternity loved thee and formed thee for His love. It has been presented by Him, Man with thee, who, as Man, died for thee, who, in His precious death, prayed for thee, Man with thee, but also God with God. How should it fail? Thy prayer cannot fail, if thou, through thine own will, fail not thy prayer. E. B. Pusey, Selected Occasional Sermons, p. 295. References: Mat_21:22.—E. B. Pusey, Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, p. 273; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 69.
Matthew Henry adds to this, "This cursing of the barren fig-tree, represents the state of hypocrites in general; and so it teaches us, [1.] That the fruit of fig-trees may justly be expected from those that have the leaves... [2.] Christ's just expectations from flourishing professors are often frustrated and disappointed; he comes to many, seeking fruit, and finds leaves only... Many have a name to live, and are not alive indeed...
[3.] The sin of barrenness is justly punished with the curse and plague of barrenness; Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. As one of the chiefest blessings, and which was the first, is, Be fruitful; so one of the saddest curses is, Be no more fruitful. Thus the sin of hypocrites is made their punishment...
[4.] A false and hypocritical profession commonly withers in this world, and it is the effect of Christ's curse; the fig-tree that had no fruit, soon lost its leaves. Hypocrites may look plausible for a time, but, having no principle, no root in themselves, their profession will soon come to nothing...
(2.) It represents the state of the nation and people of the Jews in particular; they were a fig-tree planted in Christ's way, as a church. Now observe, [1.] The disappointment they gave to our Lord Jesus. He came among them, expecting to find some fruit, something that would be pleasing to him; he hungered after it; not that he desired a gift, he needed it not, but fruit that might abound to a good account. But his expectations were frustrated; he found nothing but leaves...
[2.] The doom he passed upon them, that never any fruit should grow upon them or be gathered from them, as a church or as a people, from henceforward for ever. Never any good came from them (except the particular persons among them that believe), after they rejected Christ; they became worse and worse; blindness and hardness happened to them... How soon did their fig-tree wither away, after they said, His blood be on us, and our children! And the Lord was righteous in it.
2. How soon is the fig-tree withered away! There was no visible cause of the fig-tree's withering... it was not only the leaves of it that withered, but the body of the tree; it withered away in an instant and became like a dry stick. Gospel curses are, upon this account, the most dreadful - that they work insensibly and silently, by a fire not blown, but effectually.
(2.) Christ empowered them by faith to do the like (Matthew 21:21, Matthew 21:22); as he said (John 14:12), Greater works than these shall ye do. Observe, [1.] The description of this wonder-working faith; If ye have faith, and doubt not. Note, Doubting of the power and promise of God is the great thing that spoils the efficacy and success of faith.
“If you have faith, and dispute not” (so some read it), “dispute not with yourselves, dispute not with the promise of God; if you stagger not at the promise” (Romans 4:20); for, as far as we do so, our faith is deficient; as certain as the promise is, so confident our faith should be.
[2.] The power and prevalence of it expressed figuratively; If ye shall say to this mountain, meaning the mount of Olives, Be thou removed, it shall be done. There might be a particular reason for his saying so of this mountain, for there was a prophecy, that the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem, should cleave in the midst, and then remove, Zechariah 14:4.
Whatever was the intent of that word, the same must be the expectation of faith, how impossible soever it might appear to sense. But this is a proverbial expression; intimating that we are to believe that nothing is impossible with God, and therefore that what he has promised shall certainly be performed, though to us it seem impossible...
[3.] The way and means of exercising this faith, and of doing that which is to be done by it; All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. Faith is the soul, prayer is the body; both together make a complete man for any service. Faith, if it be right, will excite prayer; and prayer is not right, if it do not spring from faith.
This is the condition of our receiving - we must ask in prayer, believing. The requests of prayer shall not be denied; the expectations of faith shall not be frustrated. We have many promises to this purport from the mouth of our Lord Jesus, and all to encourage faith, the principal grace, and prayer, the principal duty, of a Christian. It is but ask and have, believe and receive; and what would we more?
Observe, How comprehensive the promise is - all things whatsoever ye shall ask; this is like all and every the premises in a conveyance. All things, in general; whatsoever, brings it to particulars; though generals include particulars, yet such is the folly of our unbelief, that, though we think we assent to promises in the general, yet we fly off when it comes to particulars, and therefore, that we might have strong consolation, it is thus copiously expressed, All things whatsoever."
As we continue, and still in the Epistle of James, we encounter another Scripture that provides for us another perspective on Faith as a vital aspect of being a Christian, “For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:3).
Albert Barnes says of this: “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience - Patience is one of the fruits of such a trial, and the grace of patience is worth the trial which it may cost to procure it. This is one of the passages which show that James was acquainted with the writings of Paul. The sentiment expressed here is found in Romans 5:3. See the notes at that verse. Paul has carried the sentiment out farther, and shows that tribulation produces other effects than patience. James only asks that patience may have its perfect work, supposing that every Christian grace is implied in this.”
We are going to take Albert Barnes up on his cross-reference and look both at Romans 5:3, and his notes there. We read, And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
His comments on this verse are as follows: “And not only so - We not only rejoice in times of prosperity, and of health. Paul proceeds to show that this plan is not less adapted to produce support in trials.
But we glory - The word used here is the same that is in Romans 5:2, translated, “we rejoice” καυχώμεθα kauchōmetha. It should have been so rendered here. The meaning is, that we rejoice not only in hope; not only in the direct results of justification, in the immediate effect which religion itself produces; but we carry our joy and triumph even into the midst of trials. In accordance with this, our Saviour directed his followers to rejoice in persecutions, (see Matthew 5:11-12)
In tribulations - In afflictions. The word used here refers to all kinds of trials which people are called to endure; though it is possible that Paul referred particularly to the various persecutions and trials which they were called to endure as Christians.
Knowing - Being assured of this. Paul’s assurance might have arisen from reasoning on the nature of religion, and its tendency to produce comfort; or it is more probable that he was speaking here the language of his own experience. He had found it to be so.
This was written near the close of his life, and it states the personal experience of a man who endured, perhaps, as much as anyone ever did, in attempting to spread the gospel; and far more than commonly falls to the lot of mankind. Yet he, like all other Christians, could leave his deliberate testimony to the fact that Christianity was sufficient to sustain the soul in its severest trials; see 2Co_1:3-6; 2Co_11:24-29; 2Co_12:9-10.
Worketh - Produces; the effect of afflictions on the minds of Christians is to make them patient. Sinners are irritated and troubled by them; they complain, and become more and more obstinate and rebellious. They have no sources of consolation; they deem God a hard master; and they become fretful and rebellions just in proportion to the depth and continuance of their trials.
But in the mind of a Christian, who regards his Father’s hand in it; who sees that he deserves no mercy; who has confidence in the wisdom and goodness of God; who feels that it is necessary for his own good to be afflicted; and who experiences its happy, subduing, and mild effect in restraining his sinful passions, and in weaning him from the world the effect is to produce patience.
Accordingly, it will usually be found that those Christians who are longest and most severely afflicted are the most patient. Year after year of suffering produces increased peace and calmness of soul; and at the end of his course the Christian is more willing to be afflicted, and bears his afflictions more calmly, than at the beginning.
He who on earth was most afflicted was the most patient of all sufferers; and not less patient when he was “led as a lamb to the slaughter,” than when he experienced the first trial in his great work.
Patience - “A calm temper, which suffers evils without murmuring or discontent” (Webster).”
This cross-reference is Romans 5:3, actually leads us to another facet of Faith in the verses that precede it: We read, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2).
Of this, Alexander MacLaren writes, “LET US HAVE PEACE: In the rendering of the Revised Version, ‘Let us have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ the alteration is very slight, being that of one letter in one word, the substitution of a long ‘o’ for a short one. The majority of manuscripts of authority read ‘let us have,’ making the clause an exhortation and not a statement.
I suppose the reason why, in some inferior MSS., the statement takes the place of the exhortation is because it was felt to be somewhat of a difficulty to understand the Apostle’s course of thought. But I shall hope to show you that the true understanding of the context, as well as of the words I have taken for my text, requires the exhortation and not the affirmation.
One more remark of an introductory character: is it not very beautiful to see how the Apostle here identifies himself, in all humility, with the Christians whom he is addressing, and feels that he, Apostle as he is, has the same need for the same counsel and stimulus that the weakest of those to whom he is writing have?
It would have been so easy for him to isolate himself, and say, ‘Now you have peace with God; see that you keep it.’ But he puts himself into the same class as those whom he is exhorting, and that is what all of us have to do who would give advice that will be worth anything or of any effect.
He does not stand upon a little molehill of superiority, and look down upon the Roman Christians, and imply that they have needs that he has not, but he exhorts himself too, saying, ‘Let all of us who have obtained like precious faith, which is alike in an Apostle and in the humblest believer, have peace with God.’ Now a word, first, about the meaning of this somewhat singular exhortation.
There is a theory of man and his relation to God underlying it, which is very unfashionable at present, but which corresponds to the deepest things in human nature, and the deepest mysteries in human history, and that is, that something has come in to produce the totally unnatural and monstrous fact that between God and man there is not amity or harmony.
Men, on their side, are alienated, because their wills are rebellious and their aims diverse from God’s purpose concerning them.
And-although it is an awful thing to have to say, and one from which the sentimentalism of much modern Christianity weakly recoils-on God’s side, too, the relation has been disturbed, and ‘we are by nature the children of wrath, even as others’;
not of a wrath which is unloving, not of a wrath which is impetuous and passionate, not of a wrath which seeks the hurt of its objects, but of a wrath which is the necessary antagonism and recoil of pure love from such creatures as we have made ourselves to be.
To speak as if the New Testament taught that ‘reconciliation’ was lop-sided-which would be a contradiction in terms, for reconciliation needs two to make it-to talk as if the New Testament taught that reconciliation was only man’s putting away his false relation to God, is, as I humbly think, to be blind to its plainest teaching.
So, there being this antagonism and separation between God and man, the Gospel comes to deal with it, and proclaims that Jesus Christ has abolished the enmity, and by His death on the Cross has become our peace; and that we, by faith in that Christ, and grasping in faith His death, pass from out of the condition of hostility into the condition of reconciliation.
With this by way of basis, let us come back to my text. It sounds strange; ‘Therefore, being justified by faith, let us have peace.’ ‘Well,’ you will say, ‘but is not all that you have been saying just this, that to be justified by faith, to be declared righteous by reason of faith in Him who makes us righteous, is to have peace with God?
Is not your exhortation an entirely superfluous one?’ No doubt that is what the old scribe thought who originated the reading which has crept into our Authorised Version. The two things do seem to be entirely parallel. To be justified by faith is a certain process, to have peace with God is the inseparable and simultaneous result of that process itself. But that is going rather too fast.
‘Being justified by faith let us have peace with God,’ really is just this-see that you abide where you are; keep what you have. The exhortation is not to attain peace, but retain it. ‘Hold fast that thou hast; let no man take thy crown.’ ‘Being justified by faith’ cling to your treasure and let nothing rob you of it-’let us have peace with God.’
Now a word, in the next place, as to the necessity and importance of this exhortation. There underlies it, this solemn thought, which Christian people, and especially some types of Christian doctrine, do need to have hammered into them over and over again, that we hold the blessed life itself, and all its blessings, only on condition of our own cooperation in keeping them;
and that just as physical life dies, unless by reception of food we nourish and continue it, so a man that is in this condition of being justified by faith, and having peace with God, needs, in order to the permanence of that condition, to give his utmost effort and diligence.
It will all go if he do not. All the old state will come back again if we are slothful and negligent. We cannot keep the treasure unless we guard it. And just because we have it, we need to put all our mind, the earnestness of our will, and the concentration of our efforts, into the specific work of retaining it. For, consider how manifold and strong are the forces which are always working against our continual possession of this justification by faith, and consequent peace with God.
There are all the ordinary cares and duties and avocations and fortunes of our daily life, which, indeed, may be so hallowed in their motives and in their activities, as that they may be turned into helps instead of hindrances, but which require a great deal of diligence and effort in order that they should not work like grains of dust that come between the parts of some nicely-fitting engine, and so cause friction and disaster.
There are all the daily tasks that tempt us to forget the things that we only know by faith, and to be absorbed in the things that we can touch and taste and handle. If a man is upon an inclined plane, unless he is straining his muscles to go upwards, gravitation will make short work of him, and bring him down.
And unless Christian men grip hard and continually that sense of having fellowship and peace with God, as sure as they are living they will lose the clearness of that consciousness, and the calm that comes from it. For we cannot go into the world and do the work that is laid upon us all without there being possible hostility to the Christian life in everything that we meet. Thank God there is possible help, too, and whether our daily calling is an enemy or a friend to our religion depends upon the earnestness and continuousness of our own efforts.
But there is a worse force than these external distractions working to draw us away, one that we carry within, in our own vacillating wills and wayward hearts and treacherous affections and passions that usually lie dormant, but wake up sometimes at the most inopportune periods. Unless we keep a very tight hand upon ourselves, certainly these will rob us of this consciousness of being justified by faith which brings with it peace with God that passes understanding.
Lastly, a word or two as to the ways by which this exhortation can be carried into effect. I have tried to explain how the peace of which my text speaks comes originally through Christ’s work laid hold of by my faith, and now I would say only three things.
Retain the peace by the exercise of that same faith which at first brought it. Next, retain it by union with that same Lord from whom you at first received it. Very significantly, in the immediate context, we have the Apostle drawing a broad distinction between the benefits which we have received from Christ’s death, and those which we shall receive through His life. And that is the best commentary on the words of my text.
‘If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.’ So let our faith grasp firmly the great twin facts of the Christ who died that He might abolish the enmity, and bring us peace; and of the Christ who lives in order that He may pour into our hearts more and more of His own life, and so make us more and more in His own image.
And the last word that I would say, in addition to these two plain, practical precepts is, let your conduct be such as will not disturb your peace with God. For if a man lets his own will rise up in rebellion against God’s, whether that divine will command duty or impose suffering, away goes all his peace.
There is no possibility of the tranquil sense of union and communion with my Father in heaven lasting when I am in rebellion against Him. The smallest sin destroys, for the time being, our sense of forgiveness and our peace with God. The blue surface of the lake, mirroring in its unmoved tranquillity the sky and the bright sun, or the solemn stars, loses all that reflected heaven in its heart when a cat’s paw of wind ruffles its surface.
If we would keep our hearts as mirrors, in their peace, of the peace in the heavens that shine down on them, we must fence them from the winds of evil passions and rebellious wills. ‘Oh! that thou wouldest hearken unto Me, then had thy peace been like a river.’”
We have much more to consider in answering the question posed by the title of our current Series, “What Is A Christian?” God willing, in the coming weeks, I will be attempting to answer that question as we review and examine the answers provided in God's Word. I invite all of you who are hearing or reading my words to join us at this same place and time.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “What Is A Christian? Part 33.”
This Discussion was presented “live” on September 18th, 2024.
I have designed a website to serve as an Online Book Store for the things I have written and published on Amazon. These are in the form of both Kindle eBooks, and paperback books. Some of you may recall a Series I presented on "The Lord's Prayer" several years ago. My original notes for this and other Bible Studies have been greatly revised and expanded for these publications. For further details on the books that are available, and for ordering information, click the following:
https://arvkbook.wixsite.com/romansbooks
If you purchase and read any of my books, Thank you! I would also greatly appreciate a review on Amazon!