- 4 days ago
Jay Carper and the Common Sense Bible Study crew continue their study of Romans starting at 3:26, reviewing key terms and concepts like justification, righteousness, law, and works.
The Greek words translated “righteous,” “just,” and “justifier” share the same root, so Paul is connecting one concept: God is righteous and makes others righteous. To justify someone is to declare him righteous or to zero out the debt of his sin. The discussion explains how God shows righteousness by withholding deserved judgment and by using Yeshua’s perfect obedience and sacrificial death as propitiation, with righteousness imputed to believers by faith.
The group examines boasting being excluded, the importance of translating “a law of faith” and “works of law” without definite articles, and argues that justification is by faith apart from any rule-system that could earn salvation.
Romans 3:29–31 is linked to God being God of Jews and Gentiles, with Isaiah 19:19–25 read as support for the nations worshiping God while Israel remains set apart. Genesis 15:1–6 is read to show Abraham was counted righteous by believing God before circumcision.
Jay also addresses James 2:17–26 alongside Romans 4:1–3, arguing there is no contradiction: faith comes first and genuine faith is completed and displayed by works, so faith does not overthrow law but upholds it. He uses an adoption analogy to describe God imputing sonship and rejects the idea of “once saved, always saved,” citing parables about being brought in and later cast out.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
Follow me on Whole Bible Community: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
The Greek words translated “righteous,” “just,” and “justifier” share the same root, so Paul is connecting one concept: God is righteous and makes others righteous. To justify someone is to declare him righteous or to zero out the debt of his sin. The discussion explains how God shows righteousness by withholding deserved judgment and by using Yeshua’s perfect obedience and sacrificial death as propitiation, with righteousness imputed to believers by faith.
The group examines boasting being excluded, the importance of translating “a law of faith” and “works of law” without definite articles, and argues that justification is by faith apart from any rule-system that could earn salvation.
Romans 3:29–31 is linked to God being God of Jews and Gentiles, with Isaiah 19:19–25 read as support for the nations worshiping God while Israel remains set apart. Genesis 15:1–6 is read to show Abraham was counted righteous by believing God before circumcision.
Jay also addresses James 2:17–26 alongside Romans 4:1–3, arguing there is no contradiction: faith comes first and genuine faith is completed and displayed by works, so faith does not overthrow law but upholds it. He uses an adoption analogy to describe God imputing sonship and rejects the idea of “once saved, always saved,” citing parables about being brought in and later cast out.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
Follow me on Whole Bible Community: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:01Welcome, everybody. We are starting at Romans 3.26. We left off with verse 25 last time.
00:00:09And I think there are a couple of words in our glossary that I wanted to review real quick before
00:00:15we get started.
00:00:16One is justified, which we determine means being judged righteous in God's sight.
00:00:24And we'll get into more about why that is significant tonight.
00:00:28We're going to talk quite a bit about justification and righteousness.
00:00:32Law, which is any set of directives or standards by which you're supposed to behave.
00:00:39And these are set by a higher authority. You can set a law for yourself, but people under you don't
00:00:45set laws for you.
00:00:46It's people over you. So God sets a law for you. The government sets a law.
00:00:52Your employees don't create laws for you.
00:00:54And works, you know, the phrase works of law, works of law, the detailed requirements of any set of laws
00:01:01by which men imagine that they can be justified in God's sight.
00:01:06Excuse me. Hence the absence of the word the, the definite article, works of law and not works of the
00:01:14law.
00:01:15Works of the law refers to laws related to Torah.
00:01:20And in that context, it means that the traditions or detailed rules that are derived from God's law,
00:01:28usually intended to preserve the sanctity of the temple or fences around fences,
00:01:34like create an extra strict rule to make sure that you don't break the real rule.
00:01:38Those are works of the law. Works of law can also just refer to doing things that the law requires.
00:01:46So it's not in itself. It's not a bad term.
00:01:50Okay, so let's move on and I'm going to read verse 26 to the end of the chapter.
00:01:57I'm hoping that we'll get a few verses into chapter four, but we'll see.
00:02:03It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just in the justifier of
00:02:08the one who has faith in Jesus.
00:02:09Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By what? By law of works?
00:02:15No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of
00:02:20the law.
00:02:21Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also.
00:02:27Since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by faith, do we then overthrow
00:02:34the law by this faith?
00:02:36By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law.
00:02:40All right. Another passage with some pretty heavy words.
00:02:45Let's start at the beginning in verse 26.
00:02:48It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of
00:02:53the one who has faith.
00:02:55There is something that there are a couple of things that I want to point out here.
00:03:00Let's hold off on talking about what this verse is trying to say for a minute and focus on the
00:03:04individual words.
00:03:05You know, we talked about these words justify and righteous.
00:03:10But what we haven't really talked about is that in Greek, the language that Paul was writing in, they're almost
00:03:17exactly the same word.
00:03:19Let me show, I'm going to, I'm going to advance to the next slide so you can see exactly what
00:03:23I mean.
00:03:25And you see in this verse where it says righteousness and where it says just and justifier.
00:03:32Now, I changed the wherever it says just or justified.
00:03:36I changed it to kind of match the sense of the Greek.
00:03:42The Greek uses the same word or a form of the same word for each one of those words in
00:03:47English.
00:03:49It was to show his righteousness.
00:03:51I looked up how to pronounce this and I'm getting it wrong.
00:03:54I'm butchering it.
00:03:55But dikaiosinis, I think, is right.
00:03:59At the present time, so that he might be righteous, dikaios, and the righteous maker, dikaiosta, of the one who
00:04:07has faith in Jesus.
00:04:10And remember what this says in the normal English translation.
00:04:15I'm going to move this over.
00:04:16Sorry.
00:04:18It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of
00:04:24the one who has faith in Jesus.
00:04:26But in Greek, they're almost exactly the same words.
00:04:29The problem is, I mean, I'm not saying that the English translations are wrong.
00:04:33The problem is that we don't have an English word to fit these exact terms.
00:04:39Or at least not one that gives the same sense of the word sounding almost exactly alike.
00:04:44So in this, on this slide, I changed those words to kind of give the same feel as the original
00:04:52Greek would to somebody who was reading it.
00:04:54Because these words are sound, are so much alike.
00:04:57It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be righteous and the righteous maker
00:05:02of the one who has faith in Jesus.
00:05:05Putting just and justifier in there, I think, kind of obscures that all of these words are talking about the
00:05:12same thing.
00:05:13We don't really have a single word in English that means making someone else righteous.
00:05:18You know, Tim Haig, I've been listening to his commentary on Romans, and he uses the phrase, I'm pretty sure
00:05:24it was Tim Haig, enrighteous.
00:05:27When it says that God justified somebody, he says it means enrighteous.
00:05:31He made them righteous.
00:05:33And it's not that he made them behave properly.
00:05:36He imputed righteousness to them.
00:05:38Whether they were righteous or not, he says, you are now righteous.
00:05:43And so it is.
00:05:45But in most English translations, they say you are justified.
00:05:50Which in English, at least in modern English, we usually use that word to mean you were right in doing
00:05:56what you did.
00:05:57Like you had a right to do that.
00:05:59And even in saying that, though, we give a hint that in English, the word used to mean the same
00:06:04thing.
00:06:05When we say that you have a right to do something, we're also saying that you were righteous in doing
00:06:10it.
00:06:12You had the authority and the allowance from the law to do something.
00:06:18That means you have a right to do it.
00:06:20So if you were just in doing something or you were justified in an action, it means that you were
00:06:27right to do it.
00:06:28But I'm kind of rambling here.
00:06:30There's a point that I'm trying to get across, and I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of it.
00:06:33In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm not.
00:06:36But this word justified has kind of drifted from that meaning of righteousness in English so that it doesn't –
00:06:44when we think of righteousness, we think of somebody who's behaving in all the right ways and all the best
00:06:51ways, not just in ways that are allowed, but the best.
00:06:57If you don't hurt anybody, if you drive home and you keep all the traffic laws, that's okay.
00:07:03You're doing good.
00:07:04But if you drive home, you don't hurt anybody, you go out of your way to help people, you stop
00:07:11for a dog crossing the road, you stop and help someone change a tire, you not only keep the speed
00:07:17limit and all the laws, you jump out of your car and help the police direct traffic at a corner.
00:07:23Super Boy Scout.
00:07:24So this guy is righteous in his road behavior.
00:07:30I mean, hopefully that's getting across what I mean.
00:07:34So in this Greek, it's a very similar kind of idea that all of these words are linked together because
00:07:40they all have the same basic – they all have the same root word.
00:07:45So Paul isn't using two different concepts when he's talking about being just and being righteous.
00:07:52In Paul's language, they mean the same thing.
00:07:55Does that make sense?
00:07:57Or am I just rambling?
00:08:00All right.
00:08:00So now that we have an idea that just is related to the concept of righteousness – sorry, Scott.
00:08:09Can you send that in a private message on the chat?
00:08:12I don't want to get too distracted with different devices.
00:08:16Yeah.
00:08:16Where was I going with that?
00:08:17I got too much stuff on my screen.
00:08:19I can't find my notes.
00:08:21I always seem to go through this adjustment period when we get started where I'm kind of rambling and trying
00:08:27to figure out what I'm saying.
00:08:29I'll warm up here pretty soon.
00:08:31I'll ask if I need more coffee.
00:08:34Maybe so.
00:08:36Let's see.
00:08:36I'm on verse 26.
00:08:39All right.
00:08:39Well, let's – now that we've established a connection between the concepts of just and righteous, which also connects to
00:08:47justice, if something is justice, then it is righteous.
00:08:51Justice in Scripture essentially means obedience to God's law.
00:08:56If something is just, then it is according to God's law, which means that anything that is not in accordance
00:09:02with God's law cannot be justice by definition.
00:09:05It's not just.
00:09:06It's not righteous.
00:09:08None of that stuff.
00:09:10All right.
00:09:11So in this verse, how does – let's actually look at verse 25 real quick because this is referring back
00:09:18to verse 25.
00:09:20Let me bring that up on the screen.
00:09:22It's kind of a long sentence there.
00:09:24For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified
00:09:29by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a
00:09:35propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.
00:09:38This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he has passed over former sins.
00:09:45This was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be righteous and the righteous maker
00:09:51of the one who has faith in Jesus.
00:09:54So how does God justifying us by his grace as a free gift and using Yeshua as a propitiation for
00:10:04our sin, something that wipes away our sin and his divine forbearance, meaning that he doesn't punish us for the
00:10:14sin as we deserve, how does that show God's righteousness?
00:10:18And how does it – how does it make him just or righteous and the righteous maker?
00:10:26Anybody want to take a stab at that?
00:10:29Or ask me to clarify the question if you need me to.
00:10:33Try.
00:10:33Yeah.
00:10:35Please.
00:10:36Would it not reflect his feelings towards us or he feels strongly enough about us so that we're worthy?
00:10:47Something along those lines maybe?
00:10:49How does it show – considering that righteousness means acting in accordance with God's law, how does it show God's
00:10:57righteousness in the present time to not punish us for sin and to wipe away our sins?
00:11:05I guess if you have somebody going to prison and you, despite what they deserve, you give them a path
00:11:18to, not reconciliation, but a path to recovery, is that not how this plays in?
00:11:28I mean, you're giving the individual a means by which to achieve restitution maybe, wholeness?
00:11:39Yeah, but in that case, on what basis does the judge do that?
00:11:45I mean, what gives the judge the right to do that?
00:11:48Grace.
00:11:49He has the right to extend grace.
00:11:51Well, what gives him that right?
00:11:53He has authority over you.
00:11:55Yeah, exactly.
00:11:57By his authority as the judge, which is the one who evaluates the law.
00:12:02He's the one who decides how the law applies.
00:12:05So if he has the right to say, you are innocent, despite knowing that you're guilty, then he is showing
00:12:13his superiority over the law.
00:12:15Like, he is the lawmaker.
00:12:17So he's the one who has the ability to say what the law means.
00:12:21So that everything, then, that he says is righteous by definition.
00:12:26God can't do anything unrighteous because the law is an extension of his own character.
00:12:32And how can he do anything outside of his own character?
00:12:36Right.
00:12:37But there is another angle to this.
00:12:40And if you think about the mechanism of that propitiation, you know, the thing that wipes away our sins, the
00:12:48mechanism is Yeshua's blood and our faith in it, in the promise that it does remove our sins.
00:12:56Well, this is another thing that Tim Hague says about this passage, is that God absolutely requires obedience to his
00:13:04law.
00:13:06And there is, well, I think it was actually, I think this might have been R.C. Sproul.
00:13:10I listened to a lot of people this week.
00:13:12He said that salvation absolutely requires works.
00:13:17You must be righteous in order to be saved, except that we can't.
00:13:21But there's no way that we can do it.
00:13:24So God has to step in and be that perfect righteousness on our behalf.
00:13:29And the way that he did that is through Yeshua.
00:13:33Yeshua came, lived out a perfect life.
00:13:35He fulfilled the commandments in every possible respect.
00:13:39And then he died under a false accusation.
00:13:43He died under an accusation of sin on our behalf.
00:13:47And because we believe that God's promises are sure that he will forgive us and will restore us to relationship
00:13:54with him.
00:13:56It's Yeshua's obedience that gets applied to us.
00:14:01I think the word there is imputed, which we'll get to a little bit later on.
00:14:07But that's what it means to for God to make us righteous in order to make us righteous.
00:14:14He had to be righteous in our stead because somebody had to do it and we couldn't.
00:14:19Jay, doesn't that also imply it's we're recognizing Yeshua's unique relationship with God?
00:14:29Because it's not just, hey, we recognize the power of Yeshua, but we're saying, and you are this to the
00:14:36father.
00:14:37Yeah.
00:14:38And there are other places where Paul is more explicit about Yeshua being God.
00:14:42But he addresses that in a roundabout kind of way here by saying that God's righteous making his in righteousness
00:14:51of us shows God's own personal righteousness.
00:14:54Well, the only way that that can be true, well, the two ways that that can be true, the first
00:15:00way is that, well, rather, let me back up.
00:15:04The first way that God shows his righteousness here is by withholding his judgment, by not punishing us and destroying
00:15:11us as we deserve.
00:15:13The second way is by living out righteousness himself and taking a punishment on our behalf so that that that
00:15:22punishment is that demand of the law has to be satisfied.
00:15:28And the only one who can satisfy it is a perfectly righteous being and he satisfies it on our behalf.
00:15:36So there are two ways that God demonstrates his own righteousness.
00:15:39First, by deciding that he can impute righteousness to us when we're sinners.
00:15:46And second, by using his own righteousness to remove our sin.
00:15:51It's almost a third way, too, because he does not destroy or eliminate the law.
00:15:55Because if he were to do that, I think that would diminish what he's ultimately doing.
00:16:03Yeah.
00:16:04If he destroyed the law, then what's the point of the propitiation?
00:16:07Exactly.
00:16:07There's no sin where there's no law.
00:16:09Yeah.
00:16:11Can you all see the verses that I put in the chat?
00:16:14If we get down to Romans 3.29, which I'm pretty sure we will, there's a passage there that I'd
00:16:20like somebody to read.
00:16:21And then for Romans 4.1-3, I'm hoping we get there.
00:16:26Excuse me.
00:16:27Because I'd really like to spend more time on that particular passage.
00:16:31And there are three other references that I would like somebody to read.
00:16:34And I might actually need to expand one of those.
00:16:36But anyways, when we get there, let's move on.
00:16:40Verses 27 and 28.
00:16:43I made some edits to the English Standard here.
00:16:47Remember how frequently the text actually says works of faith or works of law.
00:16:55But the English says works of the law or the law of faith.
00:17:01Well, here, where the English Standard Version says, but by the law of faith, the Greek doesn't have the.
00:17:10It doesn't have the definite article.
00:17:12So a more literal translation would be, but by a law of faith, which is how it translates the previous
00:17:19phrase, by a law of works.
00:17:21So the second one ought to be translated the same way.
00:17:25And then a little bit further down at the end of the verse, it says faith apart from works of
00:17:30the law, except the, again, isn't there.
00:17:33That should be works of law in a generic sense.
00:17:36So these two verses, then what becomes of our boasting?
00:17:41It is excluded by what kind of law, by a law of works.
00:17:45No, but by a law of faith.
00:17:46For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of law.
00:17:51So when you say works of law instead of works of the law, it takes on a very different character.
00:17:57When Paul says that we are, that one is justified or unrighteous by faith apart from works of the law.
00:18:06Well, that would mean apart from doing what the, what the law of Moses says.
00:18:11It's like, that's not really what he said, though.
00:18:14He's saying one is justified or unrighteous by faith apart from works of any law.
00:18:21It's not just the law of Moses.
00:18:23It's any law.
00:18:23It doesn't matter what law you come up with, whether it's the, you know, all the, what are the, what
00:18:30are those things called in the Catholic church?
00:18:32The sacraments, you know, if you have to do these sacraments to really be in, I mean, I, my understanding
00:18:39is that there are different levels of in, but.
00:18:43He's talking about, are you saying he's talking about obedience?
00:18:47Obedience to any law.
00:18:48Law, if you have law and you're obedient to that law, it's that obedience that makes you faithful.
00:18:55Is that what you're saying?
00:18:56No, he's saying that he's saying the opposite, that we are justified by faith apart from the works of any
00:19:02law.
00:19:02There is no, no set of rules anywhere that can justify you or make you righteous.
00:19:08Okay.
00:19:10But in any case, you know, at the beginning, when he says, what becomes of our boasting, it is excluded
00:19:15by what kind of law, by a law of works.
00:19:19And here, the English standard is, it translates this correctly by a law of works.
00:19:24Like it's not the law of works.
00:19:28Like there's a specific one.
00:19:29He's talking about any law of works by any set of standards of behavior, you could put that in the
00:19:35same in there and it would mean the same thing by a no, but by a law of faith, but
00:19:41by a standard of faith.
00:19:44And it's not the law of faith.
00:19:46There's not a specific law that defines faith.
00:19:49This is a principle and not a specific instruction.
00:19:54And that doesn't, I mean, it doesn't radically change our understanding of this verse, but I think it does clear
00:19:59up some confusion because when you read in those definite articles, it sounds like it's saying something very specific that
00:20:05Paul isn't saying.
00:20:07He's not saying that our boasting is not excluded because of the law of works, but it is excluded by
00:20:16the law of faith.
00:20:18Faith, that's not what he's saying.
00:20:20He's saying a law of faith, a principle of faith.
00:20:23Yeah, does that make sense?
00:20:25Or am I saying it in a way that makes sense?
00:20:28I know that that distinction seems kind of minor, especially in this verse, because it doesn't really radically change the
00:20:33meaning.
00:20:35But at times it can be a pretty important distinction to notice that the text doesn't say the law or
00:20:41whatever it is in that context.
00:20:45Let's see.
00:20:46We already mentioned that God alone has the power to set aside our guilt.
00:20:50And that's what he's talking about when it says in what becomes of our boasting.
00:20:55It's excluded.
00:20:57If you win the lottery.
00:21:00Can you go around saying I earned, you know, a hundred million dollars or whatever it is?
00:21:04You didn't earn anything.
00:21:05It was you might have bought a ticket or somebody gave you a ticket.
00:21:11Who knows how that particular lottery works, but you didn't do anything to earn it.
00:21:15And it's the same thing with with God's gift of justification or enrighteousment.
00:21:23He declares us righteous by his own choice because he has decided to.
00:21:27And he does that in response to our faith.
00:21:31And, you know, there's a chicken and egg thing there.
00:21:33Does God give us faith, which then allows him to give us righteousness?
00:21:39I don't know.
00:21:41I think that's neither here nor there.
00:21:45The fact is that we have faith, whether it's something that God has implanted in us or it's something that
00:21:49we come to on our own.
00:21:51I don't really know.
00:21:52But it doesn't really matter because God is still giving us that status of being righteous.
00:21:59Our faith doesn't earn us righteousness.
00:22:02It's just the thing that God acts on to impute it to us.
00:22:06If we don't believe him, that he will save us, he's not going to, because why should he?
00:22:13But if we believe that he's going to save us from our sins, he does.
00:22:17Not because he has to, but because he said he would.
00:22:22Have you ever encountered a not don't name any names or give stories that are going to give away anybody?
00:22:30But, I mean, have you ever had a conversation with somebody where it seemed like they were more righteous or,
00:22:37you know, more saved because of something that they did or some characteristic inherent in them?
00:22:45That's kind of a fuzzy sort of concept.
00:22:49I mean, how exactly do you define that?
00:22:51I know that in conversations, especially over this last week, because of the things going on in Israel, I've had
00:22:59conversations online with people who resent Jews because they perceive Jews as being superior.
00:23:07Like they're they believe that they are better than us and we're subhuman because they're God's chosen people and we're
00:23:15not.
00:23:15Like, well, I'm sure that there are some Jews out there who think that way.
00:23:20But that completely misses the point because they didn't earn anything.
00:23:25I mean, they didn't earn God's choice.
00:23:27And in fact, they would probably rather not have it.
00:23:30And scripture is pretty clear about that, that there was nothing special about Israel, that God would choose them to
00:23:36give them his law and make them his people.
00:23:40They were one of the least of the peoples.
00:23:43And it's the same thing with God's, with God's salvation, with his gift of righteousness.
00:23:49God doesn't give it to us because we deserve it, because we're better than anybody else.
00:23:54He gives it to us because he promised to save everyone who believes in him.
00:23:59OK, then I think I missed a verse here.
00:24:03Oh, there it is.
00:24:05OK, kind of relevant to what I was just saying.
00:24:07Or is God the God of Jews only?
00:24:09Is he not the God of Gentiles also?
00:24:11Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
00:24:19And remember, this word justify means to make righteous.
00:24:23He who will in righteous, the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
00:24:29Who has Isaiah chapter 19?
00:24:33Nobody got that one?
00:24:35What verses?
00:24:37Verses 19 through 25.
00:24:40OK.
00:24:41In that day, there will be an altar to Adonai in the middle of the land of Egypt and next
00:24:47to the border, a pillar to Adonai.
00:24:49It will be as a sign and a witness to Adonai to vote in the land of Egypt, for they
00:24:57will cry to Adonai because of oppressors.
00:24:59And he will send them a savior and defender and he will deliver them.
00:25:05So Adonai will make himself known to Egypt and the Egyptians will know Adonai in that day.
00:25:12They will worship with sacrifice and offering.
00:25:16They will vow to Adonai and fulfill it.
00:25:19So Adonai will strike Egypt, striking yet healing.
00:25:23So they will return to Adonai and he will respond to them and heal them.
00:25:30He said to 25.
00:25:31Right.
00:25:32To the end of the chapter.
00:25:34In that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria and the Assyrians will come to Egypt and
00:25:41the Egyptians to Assyria and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.
00:25:46In that day, Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the
00:25:52earth.
00:25:53For Adonai, the vote has blessed, saying, blessed is Egypt, my people and Assyria, my handiwork and Israel, my inheritance.
00:26:05It really is a cool passage.
00:26:07We tend to make a lot about the idea of being grafted into Israel through faith in Yeshua.
00:26:14We can become part of the Commonwealth of Israel and God considers us adopted children.
00:26:20But we came out of Egypt and Assyria, so to speak.
00:26:23Egypt and Assyria in this passage are metonymies.
00:26:28They're stand-ins for the rest of the world.
00:26:31And it literally means Egypt and Assyria.
00:26:34But throughout most of Israel's history, these were the two primary oppressors of Israel.
00:26:39Egypt to the south, Assyria to the north.
00:26:42These were the big threats.
00:26:44But God was saying that as much as Israel fears and hates these other people, they are God's people, too,
00:26:51because he is the God of all mankind.
00:26:54And he wants everybody to worship them.
00:26:56He wants everybody to be united under him.
00:27:02And one day that is going to happen.
00:27:05And I don't understand exactly what the relationship will be, you know, when during the millennial reign and Yeshua is
00:27:13ruling over all the nations of earth.
00:27:15I don't really understand what the relationship between those nations is going to be and how do they relate to
00:27:21Israel, except that Israel is still set apart.
00:27:24Even here says, blessed is Egypt, my people, and Assyria, my handiwork, and Israel, my inheritance.
00:27:31So Israel is still set apart as sort of a tie, they're a firstborn to God.
00:27:36But all of the other nations are God's, too.
00:27:40And so Paul is here saying, is God the God of Jews only, or is he not the God of
00:27:45Gentiles also?
00:27:46And there are lots of other passages in Zechariah and other places where God talks about being the God of
00:27:54the nations.
00:27:55You know, all the nations of the earth will worship him.
00:27:58And so since God is one, why should there be a different set of criteria, a different way of salvation
00:28:05for people inside of Israel or outside of Israel?
00:28:08It's the same God.
00:28:09He has the same character, whether you are born a Jew or born an Egyptian or born an American.
00:28:16Same God, same characteristics, same expectations of people everywhere.
00:28:21And we saw this back in chapter two, I think, where Paul pointed out that, or maybe it was the
00:28:29beginning of chapter three.
00:28:31He pointed out that God's law brings all of the nations of the world under condemnation.
00:28:38And because God gave his law, he wrote it down through Israel.
00:28:43But because it's written down and it's at least some part of God's law is written on everybody's heart, nobody
00:28:50in the world is without an excuse.
00:28:53Nobody in the world has an excuse for being in opposition to God's law, which means that God's law must
00:28:59apply to everybody in the world.
00:29:01Otherwise, that whole passage doesn't make any sense.
00:29:04Jay, the Isaiah reference, if you'll note the road is between Syria and Egypt, it has to go through Israel.
00:29:16Yeah.
00:29:17So, you know, that's symbolic in and of itself.
00:29:21It lends itself to the grafting in.
00:29:27Yeah, you know, if you think about Israel's history at that time, Israel was constantly being fought over by Egypt
00:29:34and Assyria.
00:29:35You know, Egypt would invade and, you know, capture Jerusalem, sack the temple.
00:29:40Assyria would invade and capture Jerusalem and sack the temple.
00:29:43You know, later on, it was Babylon.
00:29:45But, you know, Babylon was just the heir of Assyria.
00:29:48So, the kings of Israel and Judah were always trying to make alliances with these other nations.
00:29:54And Judah would frequently go to Egypt to try to protect them from Assyria.
00:29:58And, you know, it never worked because God kept telling them, don't rely on Egypt for your defense.
00:30:03But God, in this passage, you know, this word, Tsevaot, in the translation that Karen was reading, it says Adonai
00:30:11Tsevaot or Yahweh Tsevaot in the Hebrew.
00:30:13And it means the God of hosts or the Lord of hosts.
00:30:17And it's emphasizing he is the ultimate commander of the armies.
00:30:22And by saying it, by using that title in this passage, God is emphasizing that all of these armies are
00:30:30doing his bidding ultimately.
00:30:32He uses them to discipline Israel.
00:30:35But eventually, he's going to use them to bring peace to the entire region and to the whole world.
00:30:41He's in charge of everybody's armed forces.
00:30:44See, there was something in this verse in Romans.
00:30:49This phrase, since God is one.
00:30:53Oh, we are going to get into this a little bit later in the first few verses of chapter four.
00:31:00But the same phrase is used in James chapter two.
00:31:04Let me go to that.
00:31:06James chapter two.
00:31:08Yeah, here it is.
00:31:09In verse 19.
00:31:10You believe that God is one.
00:31:12You do well.
00:31:13The demons also believe in shudder.
00:31:15And then he goes on to talk about faith versus works.
00:31:18And how are you justified?
00:31:21So James and Paul are talking about the same topic.
00:31:24But they're approaching it from different directions.
00:31:26We'll get more into that a little bit later.
00:31:27But I just wanted to point out that phrase, God is one, is also how James introduces his discussion of
00:31:34faith versus works.
00:31:36Let's see.
00:31:38God makes the circumcised righteous by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
00:31:43This is a reference back to Abraham, but we'll get into that a little bit later, too.
00:31:49I'm saving all this for chapter four.
00:31:52The difference in this last sentence here.
00:31:56Who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith?
00:32:02Do you think there's any significance to the difference in pronouns?
00:32:06I mean, not pronouns, prepositions there.
00:32:08Whenever I take a sip of coffee, that's your chance to butt in.
00:32:11When it says that there is justification of the uncircumcised through faith, I would refer to Abraham because when Abraham
00:32:31was called, he was uncircumcised.
00:32:35But it was through faith that he answered the call.
00:32:41Because when he was called to come out of Mesopotamia, to leave his kinsmen and to follow Yahweh's calling, Abraham
00:32:55was uncircumcised.
00:32:58But justification came to Abraham through his faith, through his belief in Yahweh.
00:33:08So I would refer to the uncircumcised through faith, pointing to Abraham or Abraham when he left his kinsmen and
00:33:22he followed Yahweh's instruction and did what Yahweh told him to do.
00:33:28And then eventually Yahweh told him, well, I want you to circumcise the entire household.
00:33:35And Ishmael and, well, at that time, Ishmael was like 13 years old and Abraham followed Yahweh's instruction and he
00:33:46circumcised his entire household.
00:33:48I understand that part, the uncircumcised through faith, I would leave the other part, justify the circumcised by faith to
00:34:02someone else.
00:34:04And one thing I want to point out with regard to God being the God of Jews, not only the
00:34:15Jews, but the Gentiles.
00:34:18Because I remember when Peter got that vision, when the sheep was let down from heaven with all manner of
00:34:32creeping animals and beasts.
00:34:34And he heard a voice saying, rise, Peter, kill and eat.
00:34:39And he said, not so, Lord, I've never eaten anything common or unclean.
00:34:44Because Peter was thinking about food, but it didn't have anything to do with food.
00:34:50Later on in Acts 15, that was explained.
00:34:53It had to do with the Gentiles, because they still kept to themselves.
00:34:59They weren't going out as what Yeshua told them to do in Matthew 28, right?
00:35:08Because he said, go and teach all nations, but it's still war to themselves.
00:35:15And, you know, Yahweh said, look, it's time for the gospel to go out to the other nations.
00:35:22And then it's when he went down and he met with Cornelius, because Cornelius was a Gentile.
00:35:30So Yahweh had given them instructions, but they weren't really following the instructions.
00:35:36At that time, they still kept to themselves.
00:35:38Yeah, that is true.
00:35:40Yes, they kept to themselves.
00:35:43And Yahweh was saying, well, look, you are not only my children.
00:35:48I have other children out there.
00:35:51And they used to call the Gentiles commoners.
00:35:55That's what you said.
00:35:57Whatever.
00:35:57Don't call what I have sanctified.
00:36:01Don't call them commoners.
00:36:03That's what I want to point out.
00:36:06Yeah, and that's kind of what when Paul is saying that there's no boasting in God's attributing righteousness to us,
00:36:15that was one of the problems that the Jews of that time had is that they looked down on the
00:36:22Gentiles because they were inherently unclean.
00:36:27And so, you know, they wouldn't want to touch them.
00:36:29They wouldn't want to eat with them because maybe they might come into contact with an unclean Gentile and then
00:36:34bring defilement into the temple or something like that.
00:36:38And so they called them common.
00:36:40Not necessarily the same as unclean, but still, it was lesser.
00:36:44And, you know, God corrected Peter on that and Paul had to correct him again because we're not supposed to
00:36:51call people common or unclean.
00:36:54They're just people.
00:36:56And the fact is that we're all in a state of uncleanness most of the time just by the facts
00:37:01of life.
00:37:01And it doesn't make any of us any better or worse than anybody else.
00:37:06On the circumcision.
00:37:09If circumcision is a sign of the covenant, then his statement of faith is through circumcision.
00:37:18It's faith is through the covenant.
00:37:21And if he's saying also, if those that are uncircumcised, they come into, they basically have to use that same
00:37:30standard of faith to achieve that sign of the covenant.
00:37:35So the sign of the covenant really is more or less faith, is it not?
00:37:38Well, that's the, I don't know if faith can be said to be the sign of the covenant, but it's
00:37:44definitely a prerequisite to the covenant.
00:37:47Okay.
00:37:48Yeah.
00:37:48Because faith isn't necessarily visible to anybody else until it comes out of you in actions.
00:37:55Right.
00:37:56Which it has to do if it's real faith.
00:37:58In this verse, I think June made a, what June was saying about the person who was uncircumcised is made
00:38:07righteous through faith.
00:38:09That's correct.
00:38:11That's exactly where I was going.
00:38:13You know, Abraham was declared righteous before he actually did anything.
00:38:18Does somebody, let's go ahead and read Genesis 15 now.
00:38:21Does anybody have that passage?
00:38:23Genesis 15, one through six.
00:38:26Yeah, I've got it.
00:38:29After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.
00:38:33Fear not, Abram.
00:38:34I am your shield.
00:38:36Your reward shall be very great.
00:38:38But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me?
00:38:43For I continue childless.
00:38:46And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.
00:38:51And Abram said, behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir.
00:38:57And behold, the word of the Lord came to him.
00:39:00This man shall not be your heir.
00:39:04Your very own son shall be your heir.
00:39:07And he brought him outside and said, look towards the heaven and number the stars.
00:39:15If you're able to number them, then he said to him, so shall your offspring be.
00:39:22And he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.
00:39:27Good.
00:39:28Thanks.
00:39:29So the only thing that Abram did to earn this attribution of righteousness is to believe.
00:39:38And belief can't really be called something you're doing.
00:39:41What you, I mean, it may lead, it will lead to something that you do.
00:39:45But the belief itself is not a work.
00:39:48It's not something that you do to earn anything.
00:39:51But God's response to Abraham's faith was to impute righteousness to him.
00:39:58You know, before this point, it didn't matter what Abraham did.
00:40:01If he could live all his life according to God's commandments and never break any commandment.
00:40:08But if he wasn't doing it because he believed God's promises or he believed in God, then none of it
00:40:15mattered.
00:40:16None of it was righteous.
00:40:17It was all just stuff that Abraham was doing.
00:40:21Obedience without faith is just, you know, walking on a treadmill.
00:40:26No, it doesn't actually get you anywhere.
00:40:31It's the faith, even though Abraham didn't have any righteousness at that point, any real righteousness, because he believed what
00:40:39God said to him.
00:40:41God attributed righteousness to him and said, okay, you are, I'm declaring you now righteous because you believe in me.
00:40:50And essentially all of Abraham's past sins were wiped clean at that moment because God declared it so.
00:40:58Even though Abraham hadn't done anything to deserve it.
00:41:02And so he was saved, he was uncircumcised, and he was saved, declared just or declared righteous through that, not
00:41:13act of faith, but through that instance of faith or through the existence of his faith.
00:41:18I don't know exactly how you want to say that this other one justified, who will justify the circumcised by
00:41:26faith.
00:41:27You know, technically in, in the real world, there's not a lot of difference between these two phrases.
00:41:32They essentially mean the same thing.
00:41:34But because at this point, Paul is talking about those who are already circumcised, because Abraham believed in God, eventually
00:41:43when God told him to be circumcised, he circumcised himself.
00:41:48And this demonstrated his faith, but he was already declared righteous.
00:41:54But now, somebody who is born into a Jewish family, they're circumcised on the eighth day, according to the commandment.
00:42:02Does that make them righteous?
00:42:05Not really.
00:42:07I mean, it makes them part of the covenant because their parents were part of the covenant and they are
00:42:11circumcised and brought into that covenant just by right of being born a Jew.
00:42:17But it doesn't make them saved.
00:42:19It doesn't give them eternal salvation.
00:42:21It doesn't wipe away all their sins.
00:42:25So they're still made just or declared righteous by faith.
00:42:30I find it incredible, Jay, that Abram had the, what I would have considered the gall of the audacity to
00:42:38present his petition to God.
00:42:41I mean, I would think he would be cowering and thank you, but he did.
00:42:45He basically said, yeah, but, and Yahweh listened to him, which I'd be, I don't know if I'd have the
00:42:55audacity to do that, you know?
00:43:00Yeah, well, a lot of us do it, though.
00:43:04I'd be surprised if, if everybody at some point in their life didn't say, yeah, okay, God, I've got, you
00:43:13know, all this stuff that I believe and, you know, I really do believe I'm saved.
00:43:19Dave, that's great.
00:43:20But what good is it doing me right now?
00:43:23Yeah, usually if I'm doing that, I'm talking.
00:43:27If, if, if I'm very certain of his presence, I'm cowering, you know, that's how I've been.
00:43:35Yeah, well, I think a lot of times it's a rhetorical question, too.
00:43:39Yeah.
00:43:40At some level, we know what good it does, but, you know, we, we all get down, we all get
00:43:45discouraged and we all start to doubt at those moments and say, you know, what good is all this doing
00:43:51me, God?
00:43:52Can you give me something?
00:43:54Tell me something.
00:43:55And of course, he's already told us, you know, it's all laid out there in print.
00:43:59All we have to do is read it and believe it, but we're fallible.
00:44:03We forget, I'm not sure if I really made any distinction here between the justification of the circumcised by faith
00:44:11and the uncircumcised through faith.
00:44:13The only real difference is that one is starting out circumcised.
00:44:17And so that primary action of entering that covenant of Abraham is already done, even though they don't believe yet.
00:44:25So they're still circumcised.
00:44:27I mean, they're still justified by their faith, even though the action of entering the covenant is already done.
00:44:33And Abram and all the rest of us Gentiles who are coming into faith, you know, we're not circumcised according
00:44:40to the commandment and most of us never will be.
00:44:43But we are still declared righteous by God through our faith, even in our uncircumcision.
00:44:51Making sense?
00:44:53Yeah, it's almost like adoption.
00:44:56Circumcision would be, I'm part of the family.
00:44:58Adoption would be, yeah, you can be part of the family.
00:45:03Yep.
00:45:04Yeah, and I'm definitely going to be using that analogy here in a little bit as soon as we get
00:45:10into the next chapter.
00:45:11All right, so verse 31.
00:45:14Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?
00:45:17By no means.
00:45:18On the contrary, we uphold the law.
00:45:21Now, notice that I italicized the before the law, because in the Greek, the definite pronoun or the definite article
00:45:31isn't there.
00:45:32It should read, do we then overthrow law by this faith?
00:45:36By no means.
00:45:37On the contrary, we uphold law.
00:45:40Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that Paul is not talking about Torah, the law of Moses.
00:45:47When he says the law, you can pretty much bet that he's going to be talking about the law of
00:45:52Moses.
00:45:53But when he says law without the, maybe he is, maybe he isn't.
00:45:58Maybe he's talking about just a more general sense of commandments.
00:46:02In this case, he is saying, well, honestly, I don't think he really means the law of Moses.
00:46:09I have always believed that that's what he was saying here.
00:46:12At least for the last 20 some years, I believe that what Paul was saying was, do we then overthrow
00:46:18the law of Moses because we're saved by faith?
00:46:22By no means.
00:46:23On the contrary, we uphold the law of Moses because we are saved by faith.
00:46:28And that's part of what he means.
00:46:30But I think more literally, he means, do we then overthrow our obligation to keep any kind of standard?
00:46:37Are there no more rules because we have faith?
00:46:40By no means.
00:46:42On the contrary, we uphold law in a general sense.
00:46:47Because we are saved, because we have faith, now we, the laws actually mean something.
00:46:54The rules.
00:46:55And he probably does have in mind the specific rules of God's law, the Torah.
00:47:01But literally, he's saying law in a more general sense.
00:47:05He means his readers to understand that we don't throw out all rules just because we have faith.
00:47:13There are still rules.
00:47:14And in fact, the rules become more important.
00:47:16Now that we believe God, the rules around us, whether it's the laws of God or the laws of our,
00:47:22of the culture in which we live,
00:47:25these things become more significant to us, because now they actually count towards our righteousness.
00:47:31Whereas before, when we were living in sin and we were uncircumcised at heart and we did not have faith
00:47:38in God,
00:47:39all of the laws of God, all of the laws in the world couldn't make us righteous.
00:47:43But now that we have that faith, laws, at least righteous laws, do count towards our righteousness.
00:47:51And they will accrue to rewards in heaven.
00:47:55And how exactly those rewards are realized to us, I don't know.
00:48:01Talking about crowns and things after the resurrection doesn't really mean much to me.
00:48:05I think that that's referring to not things that we wear on our heads, but things that will actually be
00:48:12to our benefit.
00:48:14But since life after the resurrection is kind of beyond my comprehension, so are the rewards after the resurrection.
00:48:20We just have to take it on faith that they're there and that they are meaningful.
00:48:24Does it make sense, the difference between law and the law in this verse?
00:48:29Okay, I think to an extent it's kind of an academic point, because it does encompass the law also.
00:48:36We don't overthrow Torah because we have faith.
00:48:40We uphold it.
00:48:41It's more important than ever.
00:48:42But this applies beyond just Torah.
00:48:46Because we live in a society of laws,
00:48:50all of the specific laws on the books in the United States or in any country in the world,
00:48:56they aren't necessarily straight out of Torah.
00:48:59But as long as they're not contrary to Torah,
00:49:01we should still keep them when we can.
00:49:04Because then we live at peace with our neighbors.
00:49:06And that's a good thing.
00:49:08That is Torah.
00:49:09So if there are no questions on that one,
00:49:12we're going to move on to chapter 4.
00:49:14Okay, now before we go on here,
00:49:17I'd like someone to read James chapter 2, verses 17 to 26.
00:49:23I got it.
00:49:25Okay, go ahead, June.
00:49:26Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself.
00:49:35Yes, a man will say, you have faith, and I have works.
00:49:42Show me your faith without works, and I, by my works, will show you my faith.
00:49:51You believe that God is one.
00:49:54You do well.
00:49:56The demons also believe, and the shudder.
00:50:01But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead?
00:50:08Wasn't Abraham, our father, justified by works,
00:50:14in that he offered up Isaac, his son, on the altar?
00:50:19You see that faith worked with his works, and by works, faith was perfected.
00:50:28And the scripture was fulfilled, which says,
00:50:32Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness.
00:50:39And he was called the friend of God.
00:50:43You see, then, that by works, a man is justified, and not only by faith.
00:50:53In the same way, wasn't Rahab the prostitute also justified by works,
00:51:01in that she received the messengers and sent them out another way?
00:51:07For as a body apart from the spirit is dead, even so, faith apart from works is dead.
00:51:18Good.
00:51:19Now I'm going to read Romans 4, 1 to 3, and consider what James said in relation to what Paul
00:51:27wrote here.
00:51:28What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?
00:51:34For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
00:51:39For what does the scripture say?
00:51:41Abraham believed, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
00:51:45All right, so there seems to be a conflict.
00:51:50I emphasize seems, because there is not a conflict.
00:51:53But there seems to be a conflict between James 2 and Romans 3 and 4.
00:51:58And, you know, Paul seems to be saying that there's nothing you can do to earn your salvation,
00:52:03that righteousness is purely by faith, that God declares you righteous,
00:52:08and nothing you do can add to that.
00:52:13But then James says that faith is great, and faith is, you know, you are justified by faith,
00:52:24but not apart from works.
00:52:26Because if you say that you believe in God, and you don't have any works,
00:52:30then, you know, clearly you're not saved.
00:52:33And that there's a synergistic effect between faith and works.
00:52:36Now, a lot of people say that James must have been written after Romans,
00:52:43and that this is a refutation of Paul.
00:52:46James is trying to correct what Paul wrote.
00:52:49If that's true, though, then we don't know who wrote this letter, the letter of James.
00:52:54In the introduction, it says that this is written by James, the disciple of Yeshua.
00:52:59It doesn't say which James.
00:53:01Tradition says that this is James, the brother of Yeshua, who wrote this,
00:53:05also known as James the Just.
00:53:08And I don't see any reason to doubt that.
00:53:11Scholars tend to place the writing of James anywhere from 40 AD,
00:53:15which is just 10 years after the crucifixion and resurrection,
00:53:18all the way up to 150 AD, which is long after the apostles are dead.
00:53:24I think in about 127, if I remember right,
00:53:30there's a, somebody makes a list of all of the books of the Bible.
00:53:35And he doesn't name them all.
00:53:37He'll say, we have so many letters of Paul, so many,
00:53:40a list of the New Testament, not the whole Bible.
00:53:43But he says, we've got, you know, the gospels,
00:53:45and we've got all these letters of Paul, and we've got four letters.
00:53:48We've got three letters from John, plus this gospel.
00:53:51And we've got these other letters from the apostles.
00:53:54And he lists, he names them, or rather, sorry, he numbers them.
00:53:58He doesn't necessarily name them all,
00:54:00but it adds up to the 27 books of the New Testament that we have.
00:54:04And so this is a very good evidence that these same 27 books
00:54:08were already recognized in the early second century church as canonical.
00:54:15Like, these are the standard by which we judge all the others.
00:54:18And between that and, you know, early church fathers
00:54:22who attributed this to James the Just,
00:54:24I don't accept that later date.
00:54:30If Romans was written right around either shortly before 60 or, you know,
00:54:36right around 60 AD, and James was martyred within a couple of years of that.
00:54:41So it's remotely possible that James was written after Romans.
00:54:46Most biblical scholars who accept the Bible as literally true and inspired
00:54:52place the writing of James sometime between 40 and 50,
00:54:56which would be between five and 10 years before the book of Romans.
00:55:01So if that's true, then was Paul refuting James when he wrote Romans 3 and 4?
00:55:09I don't think either of those are true.
00:55:11And, you know, most theologians say that that's not true,
00:55:13that James was not refuting Paul.
00:55:15Paul was not refuting James.
00:55:16They're just approaching the same thing from a different viewpoint.
00:55:20And I think that's true.
00:55:22And in that case, this phrase,
00:55:26let me find it in Romans again.
00:55:29Romans 3 29, where it says,
00:55:31Or is God the God of Jews only?
00:55:33Is he not the God of Gentiles also?
00:55:36Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one
00:55:38who will justify the circumcised by faith
00:55:41and the uncircumcised through faith.
00:55:44And then go and look at James 2.
00:55:49And you believe that God is one.
00:55:52You do well.
00:55:53Even the demons believe and shudder.
00:55:55Do you want to be shown, you foolish person,
00:55:57that faith apart from works is useless?
00:56:00They both make the same points.
00:56:02God is one in faith,
00:56:05except they're coming at faith from two different directions.
00:56:08Paul says that you are justified by faith apart from works.
00:56:11But then James says you are justified by works,
00:56:15or Abraham was justified by works
00:56:16when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar.
00:56:19So I'm interested in your opinion.
00:56:22How do you reconcile James is saying
00:56:27that Abraham was justified by works
00:56:29in the sacrifice of Isaac
00:56:31and Paul saying that Abraham was justified by faith
00:56:35before he did any works?
00:56:37Any takers on that?
00:56:40I don't see why you have to separate them.
00:56:47The justification comes by basically both actions.
00:56:51One is by belief, the other is by action.
00:56:54It's like what came first, the chicken or the egg?
00:56:56It doesn't really matter.
00:56:57You know, it's, they're both synonymous with your heart.
00:57:04You know, you're acting in accordance with your belief
00:57:07and your belief system will elicit certain actions
00:57:13that are known as works, I guess.
00:57:16Anyone else want to chime in?
00:57:18Yeah, I think that the natural outflow of your faith
00:57:23becomes, obviously demonstrates itself in action.
00:57:27It's like we obviously mentioned earlier,
00:57:29we can't see faith.
00:57:32So in the world that we live in,
00:57:34the way that that becomes visible
00:57:38is that we act on what God says, essentially.
00:57:43It's like if God says you're justified,
00:57:47if God says you're his, and you believe that,
00:57:53then the only way to behave is to then act accordingly.
00:57:58Like, and what does that mean for us?
00:58:00That means obedience.
00:58:02That means, you know, obedience to commandments.
00:58:04That means a transformation of who we are
00:58:09that then flows out of us.
00:58:10So there's, there's a lot of ways to kind of look at it,
00:58:14but I think ultimately it has nothing to do with our emotions
00:58:20and it has everything to do with what we truly believe,
00:58:25what we believe is going to come out of us.
00:58:28And people say that all the time about,
00:58:31you know, watch what people do
00:58:32because that tells you what they believe.
00:58:36It's true of pagans and it's true of believers.
00:58:40Yeah, I think you both made good points.
00:58:42I think you're both right.
00:58:44And the key to really understanding these kinds of conflicts
00:58:47is just not taking a single verse out of context.
00:58:51If you read one phrase and ignore the rest of the,
00:58:54the entire chapter or the rest of the book,
00:58:57you're going to get confused.
00:58:59You're not going to understand what he's really saying.
00:59:01And so when James says that it was not Abraham,
00:59:06our father justified by works,
00:59:07when he offered up his son, Isaac on the altar,
00:59:11you can't take that and ignore the part where he says,
00:59:14you see that faith was active along with his works
00:59:17and faith was completed by his works,
00:59:20which means that faith came first.
00:59:22And then when you read Paul and you say,
00:59:24and you see that he says,
00:59:27was not Abraham justified or if Abraham was justified by works,
00:59:32you have something to boast,
00:59:33but no, he was justified by his faith.
00:59:36Yeah, but you can't take that apart from the verse right before it
00:59:40that says, do we then overthrow law by this faith?
00:59:44By no means.
00:59:45On the contrary, we uphold law.
00:59:47In other words, faith doesn't annul works
00:59:50and works doesn't annul faith.
00:59:53And then add to that,
00:59:54that the word to justify actually means to make righteous.
00:59:59And that all of these places where it says just or justified
01:00:02or justifies,
01:00:05it's really talking about righteousness.
01:00:08Abraham was declared righteous by his faith.
01:00:11And then he was made more righteous by his obedience after his faith.
01:00:17None of that obedience after,
01:00:19none of that obedience before his faith counted for anything.
01:00:22It was all just walking that treadmill.
01:00:26But once he had declared his faith,
01:00:28once he had put his faith in God,
01:00:30now his obedience to the law counts for a lot.
01:00:34Now he's made more righteous.
01:00:36And then you get this,
01:00:37like I said,
01:00:38a synergistic effect between your faith and works.
01:00:40Your faith leads you to works
01:00:43and then your works builds your faith.
01:00:46And so on.
01:00:47And, you know,
01:00:48in this continuous cycle,
01:00:50as long as you are continuing to,
01:00:52to be obeying,
01:00:53to be obedient,
01:00:54according to faith,
01:00:55your obedience builds more faith.
01:00:58If at some point you decide that you are obedient,
01:01:01because your obedience is going to earn you brownie points,
01:01:06or it's going to earn your place in the kingdom.
01:01:10yeah,
01:01:11God said I was righteous,
01:01:12but I'm not really sure I believe him.
01:01:13So I better do a bunch of works.
01:01:15Well,
01:01:15now you're just,
01:01:16you're just throwing it all aside because now you don't have faith anymore.
01:01:22So you're right.
01:01:24These two passages don't contradict each other.
01:01:26They're really saying the same thing,
01:01:28just with a different emphasis.
01:01:33Abraham had great faith in God because he knew that God somehow was going to save Isaac
01:01:50because it was Isaac that the promise was true.
01:01:56And he,
01:01:59he,
01:01:59he stepped out on that same faith that he had prior to all this,
01:02:06when he was told to leave his family,
01:02:08his relatives and go to another land.
01:02:13So he even stepped out further because this child of promise,
01:02:20Abba is telling him to go kill this child.
01:02:25So somewhere the faith in him,
01:02:28the faith he had in Abba is that Abba was going to do something to save this child.
01:02:35Because we know that God is not a God that will lie.
01:02:40Abraham said,
01:02:41well,
01:02:41listen,
01:02:41if this is what you want,
01:02:43this is exactly what I will do because I believe.
01:02:49That you will save this child because this child is a child of promise.
01:02:55That is exactly right.
01:02:57Yes.
01:02:59I don't want to.
01:03:04I think that interesting because it really,
01:03:07it really ultimately points to the possibility that Abraham believed that God would resurrect him.
01:03:15That it's a shadowing,
01:03:16you know,
01:03:17in that way.
01:03:18And because it's like by,
01:03:20by any human logic,
01:03:21if the child were dead,
01:03:24there's only one way God would,
01:03:26could resolve that.
01:03:27And that is to resurrect him.
01:03:28So it it's,
01:03:29he had,
01:03:29he had resurrection faith.
01:03:31Yeah.
01:03:32The original faith that Abraham had that caused God to impute that righteousness to him was his faith in the
01:03:41promise of an heir.
01:03:42And so then God says,
01:03:44we'll go kill your heir.
01:03:46Abraham clearly still had faith in that heir.
01:03:49God promised that Isaac would be the father of nations.
01:03:53So it doesn't matter what I do to him.
01:03:55It's going to happen.
01:03:57Well,
01:03:58I like this when he told the other man,
01:04:00he said,
01:04:00look,
01:04:01I and Isaac,
01:04:02we're going to go up there to worship.
01:04:04Worship.
01:04:05You know,
01:04:07he,
01:04:08he called it,
01:04:10I mean,
01:04:11such a communion.
01:04:12He called it worship.
01:04:14Bowing down to Yahweh,
01:04:17you know,
01:04:18giving him all.
01:04:19This is what he wants.
01:04:21So I'm going to go up with my son and we are going to worship him.
01:04:25Wow.
01:04:26June,
01:04:26you just touched on,
01:04:27on,
01:04:28uh,
01:04:28giving a new twist to what Moses said when he spoke to him.
01:04:34To Pharaoh,
01:04:34I'm I need to go to worship,
01:04:36which in essence was taking Israel out to what looked like they were going to be
01:04:41slaughtered.
01:04:43So there's a,
01:04:44there's a parallel there with,
01:04:46with what Abraham was doing with Isaac and what Moses was doing with the
01:04:52people of Israel.
01:04:54Yeah.
01:04:54I don't,
01:04:55not sure I've ever realized that before,
01:04:57but yeah,
01:04:58Moses tells Pharaoh,
01:04:59let us go three days into the wilderness to worship God and make
01:05:02sacrifices.
01:05:04And Abraham takes Isaac three days out into the wilderness with his two
01:05:09companions to go worship through sacrifice.
01:05:13Very good.
01:05:15Uh,
01:05:15you know,
01:05:16I mentioned earlier that I wanted to give an analogy about adoption and it
01:05:21relates to this passage to these couple of verses here.
01:05:25Consider a man who adopts two sons.
01:05:29Both of these sons,
01:05:31neither one of them are his natural offspring.
01:05:34The father has imputed sonship to both of them.
01:05:38Neither one of them did anything to earn it.
01:05:40He just went out one day,
01:05:42grabbed two,
01:05:42two orphans off the street and said,
01:05:44okay,
01:05:44now you're my sons.
01:05:46Now,
01:05:47of course,
01:05:47this isn't exactly the way it works with us.
01:05:49I mean,
01:05:49we,
01:05:49God responds to our faith.
01:05:52And he grants faith same time.
01:05:54You know,
01:05:55I'm not,
01:05:55I don't want to get into that mess,
01:05:58but in no case did we earn the sonship.
01:06:02We are adopted.
01:06:03There was nothing we could have done to make ourselves sons of somebody
01:06:07else.
01:06:07We couldn't walk into his house and say,
01:06:09okay,
01:06:09I'm your son.
01:06:10Now that's not the way it works.
01:06:12The father has to go and get you and say,
01:06:15you are my son.
01:06:17But the first son,
01:06:18the first adopted son is obedient,
01:06:21faithful all his life.
01:06:23Keeps all of the father's rules,
01:06:25honors him in public.
01:06:28He is a son in both name and deed.
01:06:31The second son,
01:06:33he's kind of like the prodigal who he rebels and he leaves the father's
01:06:37house.
01:06:38You know,
01:06:39maybe at some point he repents and he returns like the prodigal son did.
01:06:43Maybe he doesn't.
01:06:44That's not really the point.
01:06:46The point is that the father has the option to continue calling him a son
01:06:50or not.
01:06:52The father gets to decide whether this adopted son is still a son or not,
01:06:57no matter what that son does.
01:06:59It's all up to the father.
01:07:01He's the one who makes the rules.
01:07:03He's the one who declares you a son.
01:07:05He is the one who can declare you not a son.
01:07:09There are passages where God,
01:07:11where,
01:07:11you know,
01:07:12the scripture says that nothing can separate you from the father.
01:07:17That's true.
01:07:18Nothing on earth can separate you from the father,
01:07:20but the father can.
01:07:21He can separate you from the father.
01:07:24And Yeshua's constant or repeated parables about the kingdom of heaven
01:07:32underscores this.
01:07:33You know,
01:07:34the,
01:07:34the king who threw a feast and brought all the people in and the guy who
01:07:38came in without the appropriate wedding clothes.
01:07:42Well,
01:07:43he's in the,
01:07:43he's in the banquet.
01:07:44He's there.
01:07:45Made it inside the king's house.
01:07:47But the king says,
01:07:49throw him out.
01:07:50And then the,
01:07:53the people who run the vineyard,
01:07:55the king is at least this vineyard to them.
01:07:59They are in charge.
01:08:00They are in the vineyard,
01:08:02but because they abused this privilege,
01:08:05they abused the king's messengers.
01:08:07They plotted to kill the king's son.
01:08:10He throws them out.
01:08:12You know,
01:08:12the unfaithful servant over and over again,
01:08:15Yeshua tells the story of someone who is in,
01:08:17he was part of the king's household.
01:08:20And now you're not.
01:08:22So I don't buy for a second,
01:08:24the idea that once God has imputed righteousness to you,
01:08:27there is no way to get rid of it.
01:08:30The one saved,
01:08:31always saved idea.
01:08:32I don't buy it.
01:08:33It just does not fit with scripture.
01:08:36Nobody can separate you from God except God.
01:08:40And if you reject him,
01:08:43don't be surprised when he rejects you right back.
01:08:46Yeah.
01:08:48And in either case,
01:08:49the father is just,
01:08:50he has every right to do that because he's the one who sets the law.
01:08:55Does that make sense?
01:08:58Anybody have any questions or anything they want to add to this?
01:09:01So if you have thoughts right now,
01:09:03then definitely share them.
01:09:05Don't forget to like this video,
01:09:07subscribe to American Torah,
01:09:09and check out the rest of our videos on Romans.
01:09:11And since they're not sent on Romans.
01:09:11And that's the best mod beings.
01:09:11And it's all right.
01:09:12And that's the best one that's left.
01:09:12We'll see.
01:09:13We'll see.
01:09:13Let's see.
01:09:13Bye!
01:09:14Bye!
01:09:14Bye!
01:09:15Bye!
01:09:15Bye!
01:09:15You
Comments