TRUE EVANGELISM!

Paul’s Presentation
Of The First Five Steps
of The Soul-Winner
in Romans
Bernard E. Northrup Th. D.
The translation of the Biblical text
is the Author’s
unless otherwise noted
copyright 1996
Bernard E. Northrup
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
A NOTE TO THE READER
A NOTE INTENDED ONLY FOR THE SCHOLARS
PROLOGUE
A. Paul’s Focus on the Gospel
B. Paul’s message to believers.
C. Paul’s concern for his own people, the nation of Israel
D. Paul’s own example of soulwinning techniques
E. Paul introduces the gospel in Romans 1:15-16

CHAPTER ONE
THE FIRST STEP OF THE SOULWINNER: Exposing Man’s Total Lack of
Righteousness Before God (Rom. 1:15-3:20)
A. An Introductory Preview of Paul’s presentation of the Gospel
B. A Brief Survey of Paul’s Presentation of the Gospel
1. Mankind’s twofold opportunity to know God rejected
2. God’s remarkable provision of His own righteousness to the unrighteous
3. Man’s utter inability to participate in the saving of himself by works
4. The Savior’s work on the cross in bearing the penalty for our sins
5. The Divine transaction of transferring our sins to Christ and His righteousness to us
C. Paul’s explanation of a major achievement of the gospel
1. The gospel should produce a twofold means of revealing God’s righteousness to the
world (Rom.1:16-17)
2. The gospel is a means of revealing the righteousness of God
3. The life of the justified believer also should be a means of revealing the righteousness
God (1:17b)
DID YOU KNOW THAT GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD...
4. God’s wrath revealed against all unrighteousness (1:15-32)
a. The theme of the gospel: God’s righteousness (1:16)
b. Its revelation by the gospel’s requirements (1:17a)
c. Its ultimate revelation through lives of believers (1:17c)
d. The Real nature of the Gospel which Paul Preached
A WORD TO THE JEWISH EVANGELIST
5. The way that God’s revelation of Himself to mankind through natural revelation
unveils what God is like.
a. Man already is condemned by his rejection of natural revelation (1:18-20)
b. Mankind’s departure from natural revelation (1:21-23)
c. God’s resignation of the sinful race to its own way (1:24-32).
D. The Plight of the Self-righteous Jew (2:1-3:8)
1. God’s judgment of the self-righteous with the reprobate (2:1-29)
a. The self-righteous condemned with the reprobate (2:1).
b. God’s judgment is according to truth and works on the basis of the gospel (2:2-16)
c. The folly of Israel in depending upon the law for righteousness (2:17-20)
d. Israel’s utter failure to practice what they preached (2:21-29).
2. God demonstrates that all mankind is under condemnation and lacks righteousness
before Him (3:1-20).
a. Israel’s complaint of lack of advantage in being placed on a level with the lost Gentile
(3:1-4).
b. The rejection of Israel’s attempt to justify their unrighteousness (3:5-8)
c. The placing of both Jew and Gentile equally under sin (3:9-19).
d. The conclusion that the entire race is guilty before God (3:20).

CHAPTER TWO
THE SECOND STEP OF THE SOUL WINNER: Revealing God’s amazing gift
of His own righteousness (3:21-26)
A. Righteousness from God provided through faith in Christ (3:21-24).
1. The source of that righteousness is from God Himself
2 This righteousness is not based upon keeping the Mosaic law
3. The character of that righteousness which is acceptable to God
4. The God given witnesses concerning this true righteousness (3:21c)
5. The true basis for receiving this righteousness from God (3:22).
a. That righteousness is received from God Himself alone
b. That righteousness is received by faith in Jesus Christ alone
6. The extent of Hia provision of righteousness (3:22-23).
a. It is for all who believe because there is no distinction
b. Because of mankind’s fall in Adam’s sin (3:23)
7. The manner of receiving God’s righteousness (3:24)
a. "Being justified freely...."
b. Being justified freely by grace through His redemption
8. God’s method of providing this true righteousness which mankind so solely has needed
since the fall of the race in the garden Eden
a. By justification based upon Christ’s death (3:24c-25a)
b. By propitiation through faith in His blood (3:25a)
B. This provision of His own righteousness is God’s means of making His forgiveness
available to mankind, past and present (3:25-26).
1. Christ’s death was the basis for the justification of the repentant Old Testament sinner
(3:25)
2. Christ’s death also is the basis for God’s justification of the New Testament believer (v.
3:26).
C. The rejection of man’s boasting concerning works achieving self-righteousness
(3:27-28).

CHAPTER THREE
THE THIRD STEP OF THE SOUL WINNER: How a person receives this gift of
God’s righteousness (3:27-4:25)
A. This gift is never received by good works but only by means of faith (3:27-4:8)
1. The rejection of man’s boasting of his works for salvation. (3:27)
2. The fact that justification before God is only by means of faith (3:28)
3. The inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s program of justification by means of faith alone
(3:29-30)
4. Paul’s denial that salvation by faith alone would make the law to be void, asserting that
this actually fulfills the law (3:31).
5. The principle of imputating of righteousness by faith apart from works illustrated (4:1-
8)
a. By demonstrating how Abraham was counted righteous (4:15)
b. By explaining how David was forgiven his sin and was counted to be righteous (4:6-8)
B. Justification is never received by any ceremony which has been performed on him
but only by means of his own faith (4:9-12)
1. Questioning the function of the ritual (4:9-10)
2. The timing of the ritual of Abraham’s circumcision: The ritual followed Abraham’s
reception of God’s righteousness when he believed God’s promise (4:10b-11a)
3. In that sense Abraham is father of all believers. (4:11c-12)
C. Being counted righteous in God’s court is never received by keeping the law but
only by faith (4:13-25)
1. In the same way that Abraham’s promise of heirship was not by law for it was before
the law was given (4:13).
2. If law keeping made one an heir, then faith would be made void (4:14-15)
3. Thus the counting of God’s righteousness to the sinner is of faith and only as a free gift
(4:16-23)

CHAPTER FOUR
THE SOUL-WINNER’S FOURTH STEP: Explaining how Christ has provided His
own Righteousness to us (5:1-21)
THE POEM: EVANGELIST
A. Christ’s work on the cross, God’s altar, brings us grace and peace (5:1-5)
1. Our position: justified by faith. (5:1-5)
2. The provisions of our position when justified by faith (5:1b)
3. Our response to the love of God (5:2b-5)
B. Because of God’s love, Christ died in our own place, satisfying the wrath of God
against us (5:6-8).
1. The basis for our justification: Christ’s death for the ungodly (5:6-8)
2. The deliverance from wrath that justification brings is through Christ (5:9).
C. The satisfaction of judgment brought by Christ’s death in our place saves us from
the wrath of God (5:10a)
D. Christ’s present life assures us of reconciliation to God and of our ultimate
salvation (5:10b-11)
E. Christ’s obedience delivers us from condemnation in Adam (5:12-21)
1. The plight of all mankind "in Adam" (5:12-14)
a. In Adam all mankind came to have the sin nature and face the death which it brings to
every man (5:12)
b. In Adam all mankind participated in Adam’s act and sinned because we were Adam
(5:12c)
F. Christ’s grace brings righteousness and eternal life to those who believe (5:20-21)
 CHAPTER FIVE
THE SOUL WINNER’S CRUCIAL FIFTH STEP: Explaining God’s means of
transferring our sins to Christ and His righteousness to us (6:1-10)
A. The prophetic background for the great transaction
B. Our obligation as believers to live above bondage to the sin nature (6:1-2)
C. The reason for that obligation: The transfer of our sins to Christ and of Christ’s
death to us as believers through being baptized into Him (6:3-10)
1. Because we have been placed in Christ, we been crucified in Him (6:3)
2. Because we have been placed in Christ, we have been buried with Him (6:4a)
3. Because we have been placed in Christ, we have been resurrected from death with Him
(6:4b).
D. Which baptism? What does this baptism accomplish?
E. Is it possible for water baptism alone to accomplish all (or any) of these things
found in this passage? No!
1. Examining "the baptism that saves us" (I Pet. 3:20-21)
2. The introduction to the explanation of our new obligation to live as resurrected
believers in the resurrected Christ (6:5-10)

A NOTE TO THE READER

This is a book which expresses the serious concerns of the writer for the deterioration of
the church resulting from the common practice of preaching of “another gospel” which
falls short of the pattern established by Paul. I see a remarkable lack of attention given by
the church to the principles and approaches to evangelism which are displayed by the
Apostle Paul and which are presented by him in the Book of Romans. We live in a period
of church history when the deterioration of the church causes it to careen onward toward
carnality and worldliness at a frightening pace. I lay much of the blame for this at the
door of the multitudes of personal witnesses, evangelists and pastors who, ignoring Paul’s
soul-winning techniques, shortchange the lost by adding to or subtracting from the gospel
which, according to Paul, is the only gospel which can save the lost.
Extra-Biblical theological presuppositions and misunderstandings of key Biblical texts
appear to be the origin of the well accepted practice of preaching “another gospel” which
often innocently permeates whole denominations, local churches and evangelistic
ministries. Distractions by the world system with its false philosophies often color the
thinking, both of the evangelist and the seeker. This sorely hinders the lost from fully
understanding the Biblical gospel message which could bring them salvation. Often these
hinderances result in “aborted believers” who never have had the opportunity of
breathing their first breath as a real believer. Having never really had the opportunity of
hearing an accurate and complete presentation of the gospel, they never have arrived at
“saving faith.” It often is true that the “hearer of the gospel” never really understood his
lost estate nor what was required, either on the part of God or of himself, for him to be
saved. As a result, many in our local churches have gone through the motions of coming
forward during a fervent “altar call” (after a service which contained no gospel), have
been baptized, often on the spot, without really understanding or accepting the finished
work of Christ in their place. Paul addresses this very real possibility of the “aborted
believer” who never actually comes to real generation by the Holy Spirit into God’s
family in I Corinthians 15. It is obvious that this problem of the failure of the supposed
convert to understand the gospel was one of Paul’s serious concerns. It obviously was a
concern that he had even for those who had heard his own preaching of the gospel. He
expresses this concern in these words, “… Unless you have believed without really
understanding … ” (I Cor. 15:2).* (There are several Greek words, all translated “in
vain” in the King James Version 1 Corinthians 15. Each has its own distinct meaning).
The book of Romans is a remarkable book. When carefully studied, Romans 1:16–6:10
will be seen to present the pattern and the elements of the evangelistic outreach which
Paul used when presenting the gospel. Furthermore, Romans 6:10–6:23 perfectly sets
forth that which he considered to be an essential message for grounding the new believer
so that he or she might become a useful servant-priest in the temple which is Christ’s
body, the Church. This latter section of the book strongly suggests another real source of
the problem causing the disintegration of the church in our day. Many heavy hearted,
newly born believers who actually have understood the gospel and who have accepted
Christ as their Savior, literally are dumped as foundlings at the doorstep of the Church
without any spiritual training whatsoever by the one who won them to Christ. That
actually happened to me when I was led to Christ, but, thank God, other more mature
believers saw my need and led me on to maturity. How strange that the soul-winner, who
has shown enough concern for a lost person to help to bring him or her to the new birth,
often shows not the slightest concern for the newborn believer’s first spiritual meal nor
for that new believer’s long struggle to spiritual maturity! Untaught in the truths of the
last half of the book of Romans, these foundlings are left to go all of their lives in the
tattered rags of their past estate. Far too often they never learn how to put off the rags of
their old lives. Though robed in Christ’s righteousness, they never learn how to apparel
themselves in robes of personal righteousness. With proper discipling, either by the soul
winner or by a coworker in the field of discipleship, they could have learned to obey
God’s instruction to His children: “You be holy for I am holy” (I Pet. 1:16). *Another
major reason for the invasion of the church by sin, carnality and worldliness is the fact
that the Church has become overpopulated with the believers who are described in
Hebrews 5:11–14. These are believers who still are utterly immature, having never “…
exercised their senses to discern between good and evil” (Heb. 5:14). Many who really
are believers are unaware of their three very real spiritual enemies, the world system, the

*
This textual corruption evident in the Egyptian manuscripts argues powerfully for a
return to the Majority text as a more trustworthy basis for identifying the original Greek
text. The New King James Version notes variations in Majority textual tradition which
are supported by a multitude of Greek manuscripts. Often the translation found in “True
Evangelism” closely follows the NKJV, a translation which I appreciate because it does
follow the Majority Greek Text rather than following the Alexandrian Text of Egypt.
Often for clarity, or where I feel that an important factor in the Greek text needs to be
emphasized, I supply my own translation and understanding of the Greek text. I indicate
this by an asterisk (*) following the Scriptural reference. Explanatory phrases which I
have added to a Scriptural verse are in brackets and are not in bold type as Scripture is
otherwise. Where I wish to stress a phrase, I have placed it in italics. This does not mean
that this text has been supplied by the translator.
flesh including their old sin nature, and the Devil. Indeed, some have even been taught
that they do not even have a sin nature!
It is a rare church today which does not have an entrenched body of worldings and carnal
believers. Defeat by the third enemy, Satan, is so common, and yet we do not even have a
word to describe the believer who is caught in the snare of that great enemy of the Lord
and of His children. Here too great damage to believers has been done by those who
teach that Satan, as a defeated enemy, has had his fangs pulled and only has a great roar
with which to frighten us! Carnality, or defeat by our internal enemy, the sin nature, is the
resulting mode of life for multitudes who erroniously have been taught that the believer
no longer has a sin nature. While this was taught years ago by those who continually
sought “sinless perfection,” today this utterly erronious doctrine is taught in many
churches that never would have dreamed of following such heresy. This position is held
and is taught in spite of the fact that Paul three times in Romans 7 specifically referred to
“… the sin nature which is indwelling me” * as the cause of his own spiritual defeat
before he understood the ministry and empowerment of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Indeed, it appears from Romans 7 that Paul’s failure in his early spiritual life to recognize
that he still had an indwelling sin nature in the days following his Damascus Road
experience actually became the occasion for the accusation of his conscience of sin by the
Mosaic law. After all, the Mosaic Law inescapably was a permanent part of the
consciousness of this former Pharisee. Even decades later John the Apostle, when he
wrote First John, found it necessary to warn believers: “Stop loving the world system
[ruled by Satan] with self-sacrificing, devoted love, and the things which are in the
world system. If any man love the world system with self-sacrificing, devoted love,
love for the Father is not in him … ” (1 Jn. 2:15–16).* Such a command in the present
imperative requires that we recognize that there are worldly believers who have not
escaped the destructive attack of that enemy.
But perhaps the problem which outrages the church in many cases is the fact that the
individual involved actually is a secret unbeliever. He may be one of the many in the
church who have received only a digested version of the gospel, never really
understanding either of two crucial truths,
1. that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Lord incarnate or
2. that Christ no longer lies in a Judean tomb.
Paul specifically insists that “… If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is the
Eternal Lord and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead,
you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9–10).* This book, “TRUE EVANGELISM! Paul’s
Presentation of the First Five Steps of the Soul-winner,” is written in the hope that
many who never really have heard the gospel according to Paul may now hear it from
you and come to believe with genuine, saving faith.
Bernard E. Northrup Th.D. February, 1996
 A NOTE INTENDED ONLY FOR THE
SCHOLARS
The translation text often agrees with the New King James Version. This translation does
a great service for the English reader in modernizing pronouns and the Elizabethean
English of the King James Version which obscures the meaning to many readers today.
At the same time it carefully avoids departing from the sense of the original. It also has
the advantage of not following the Egyptian Greek manuscript sources although major
deviations of these manuscripts from the Majority Text are noted. The value of these
manuscripts, though being represented in several collated Greek New Testaments and in
most modern English translations as being the closest representation of the original Greek
manuscripts, because of their great antiquity, this is as very questionable conclusion.
These manuscripts were copied and used in an area where Gnostic and Greek philosophy
greatly influenced the Church of North Africa. I have come to the conclusion that, in
some cases, variant readings found these manuscripts actually are serious deviations from
the original manuscripts. The several Egyptian manuscripts which collectively are called
“the Alexandrian tradition,” between themselves display remarkable disagreement in
their texts when closely examined. They by no means present a united testimony
concerning the original form of the Biblical text. In some of the New Testament books I
have found in one single book these Egyptian manuscripts may disagree with each other
about a textual reading anywhere from 10 to 100 times! Worse yet, the readings of some
Biblical verses in our translations where translators have followed these few Egyptian
copies of the originals are supported by no more than two readings from Egyptian
manuscripts and are never found in the more than 5,000 other Greek manuscript copies.
Yet these Alexandrian readings are presented as having the best support as representing
the original manuscripts!
I have studied the Textual Criticism of the Greek manuscripts for nearly half a century. I
conclude that these Egyptian manuscripts testify by their many variations among
themselves that the Alexandrian textual tradition actually has suffered much at the hand
of scribes. An examination of the theological writings of the early church fathers who
lived in Egypt will suggest that these serious variations found in the Alexandrian Greek
texts are variants caused by the theological misunderstandings which are common in that
area. I no longer consider the Alexandrian textual tradition to be an authoritative
representation of the Greek originals as Wescott and Hort did and as many translators still
do. I speculate that there definitely are times when this obvious textual disagreement
between these few Egyptian manuscripts results from Gnostic traditions and the influence
and the prevalence of Greek philosophy which is recognizable to scholars in the writings
of the early Egyptian/Greek church fathers. These greatly influenced the Greek speaking
church in Egypt and, to my amazement, still influence the translators of our numerous
modern translations of the New Testament.
This textual corruption evident in the Egyptian manuscripts argues powerfully for a
return to the Majority text as a more trustworthy basis for identifying the original Greek
text. The New King James Version notes variations in Majority textual tradition which
are supported by a multitude of Greek manuscripts. Often the translation found in “True
Evangelism” closely follows the NKJV, a translation which I appreciate because it does
 follow the Majority Greek Text rather than following the Alexandrian Text of Egypt.
Often for clarity, or where I feel that an important factor in the Greek text needs to be
emphasized, I supply my own translation and understanding of the Greek text. I indicate
this by an asterisk (*) following the Scriptural reference. Explanatory phrases which I
have added to a Scriptural verse are in brackets and are not in bold type as Scripture is
otherwise. Where I wish to stress a phrase, I have placed it in italics. This does not mean
that this text has been supplied by the translator.

PROLOGUE

The first half book of Romans is a complete statement of the gospel. This is a book which
explains our desperate, lost condition and the fact that our ascended Savior is able to save
all who come to God by Him.

A. Paul’s Focus on the Gospel

The word “gospel” occurs repeatedly in the book of Romans. It is found fifteen times in
the following verses: 1:1, 2, 1:9, 1:15, 1:16, 1:17; 2:16, 10:15, 10:16, 11:28, 15:16, 15:19,
15:20, 15:29 and 16:25. The impact of this fact will be felt when the reader scans these
verses in a single reading.
“Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, a called Apostle, separated to the gospel of
God, which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures … ”
(1:1–2).
“For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that
without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers … ” (1:9).
“So as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome
also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to
salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in
it the righteousness of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness … ” (1:16–17).
“… Their thoughts accusing or else excusing them in the day when God will judge
the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel” (2:15–16).
“And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are
the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good
things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says: Lord, who has
believed that which we heard?” (10:15–16).*
“Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election
they are beloved for the sake of the fathers” (11:28).
“… That I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel
of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy
Spirit” (15:16).
“… I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not
accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient—in
mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from
Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named,
lest I should build on another man’s foundation … ” (15:17–20).
“But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of
the gospel of Christ” (15:29).
“Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching
of Jesus Christ, acording to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world
began but now made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the
everlasting God, for obedience to the truth … ” (16:25–26).
Two of these passages give us a very concise statement of what is contained in the gospel
and what is to be accomplished by a proper understanding of the message of the book of
Romans about the gospel. It is obvious from the book of Galatians that there were those
in Paul’s day who did not fully understand the gospel. He says:
“I marvel that so quickly you are turning from the One who called you in the grace
of Christ unto another gospel [of a different kind], which is not another [of the same
kind]. But there are certain ones who are troubling you and who are wanting to
change the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel out of heaven preaches a
gospel to you which is different than that which we preached to you, let him be
cursed. As we before have said, and even now I say again, if anyone preaches to you
a gospel different than that which you received, let him be cursed” (Gal. 1:6–9).
The problem still is present in the church. Many hear that, as a prerequisite to receiving
salvation, it is necessary for one to be baptized, to take the Lord’s supper, to join a certain
church, to “commit yourself to Christ!” (whatever that unBiblical expression means!), to
“make Jesus your Lord and Master!” or any number or other human prerequisites. They
are told that, apart from presenting this prerequisite to salvation, one actually is not saved
even though he or she has accepted the work which God’s perfect substitute, the Messiah,
has accomplished.
All of these humanly required stepping stones prior to the receiving of salvation have one
thing in common. However well meaning may be the misinterpretation of Scripture
which introduced the error, all pervert the message of the Word of God which, without
exception, presents salvation as a free gift. There are no humanly manipulated strings
whatsoever attached to it. It is a message which allows nothing to be added to it.
The major purpose which Paul displays in Romans 1:16–6:10 is to set forth, precisely and
step by step, the five key elements of that message which he called “the gospel.” As a
result, the first half of this great book gives us the specific details of that which properly
is called “the gospel.” It leaves no doubt about how a man is to respond to these specific
elements of the gospel. Indeed Paul in this section, while explaining the elements of the
gospel message, carefully spells out that which is not involved in the gospel. He corrects
many of the errors which even today in Christendom are mistakenly peddled in place of
or as part of the gospel. Paul’s full explanation of the gospel requires our rejection of
those elements which often are presented as absolute prerequsities for salvation. These
man-made elements, according to Paul, cannot and do not enable God to provide His free
grace as the only means whereby a man or woman may be saved. Indeed, Paul shows that
the presence of these human additives, intermixed with or added to the gospel, pollutes
and negates the message of the gospel concerning God’s work of grace which provides
redemption freely. As we have seen in Galatians 1:6–8, Paul actually calls down
“anathema,” an Aramaic curse, on all who “… pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal. 1:7)
by adding to it or by taking away from it or by preaching “… a gospel of a different
kind” (Gal.1:9) than the one that he had preached to them.
The final element of the gospel which Paul presented to the Romans in 6:1–10 is the most
neglected and one of the most mis-represented portions of the gospel which saves the
lost. It contains a precise explanation of the means that God used to accomplish the
remarkable work of counting the death of the Messiah to be the repentant sinner’s death,
whether he be Jew or Gentile. He explains the specific legal method by which God counts
the Messiah’s burial to be the believer’s own death in payment for sin. Yes, he even
explains how God is able to count the resurrection of the long promised Messiah to be the
believer’s own resurrection the moment that he accepts Christ. This crucial information,
which is directly linked to the fact that Christ arose from the dead and came forth from
His tomb after three days and nights, requires the soul-winner to be certain that he has
presented the resurrection of Christ as part of his gospel presentation. Already I have
mentioned just how important that fact is to the repentant sinner. He says: “… That if
you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Eternal Lord and believe in your
heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” * Just why that is
so important to the seeker will be explained by Paul in Romans 6:1-l0 and in chapter 10.
In that second half of the book, in Romans 9–11, Paul will return to and will reemphasize
a crucial subject which he already has introduced in chapters 2–4. That subject is the
difficulty that many Jews have in accepting the Messiah and the message of the gospel.
Once again he will explain crucial elements of the gospel which must be accepted by Jew
or Gentile for one to receive salvation. It is obvious that Paul felt that it was crucial that
he (and we) convey an absolutely clear understanding of the message which he calls “the
gospel.” This study is an examination of the specifics of that message in the book of
Romans, in the desire that those who are seeking to help the lost to find the Savior will
present all of the gospel without adding or subtracting anything whatsoever to its simple
message.
It seems that many religious teachers have never figured out precisely how a perfectly
righteous God is able to resolve the problem of a man’s sin and save him from the eternal
consequences of the fact that he was born a sinner and still is a sinner. Somehow they
have never seemed to realize that God, because of His perfect righteousness, simply
cannot and will not tip the imaginary balance scales in the favor of the sinner. In an
amazing way, man loads that imaginary balance scale of judgment with multiple reasons
explaining to God why He should save him or some other man or woman. Mankind does
not seem to understand that, if God were to act like so many judges do today, forgiving
guilt and its responsibility without a just basis for cleansing the record of the sinner, then
He would do no less than involve Himself in that guilt and in the penalty which the sinner
must bear.
Somehow many of the world’s religions have assumed that God is a kindly old gentleman
who is so tenderhearted toward the sinner that He is willing and able to receive any
pittance which the sinner offers to Him as the basis for that person’s salvation. As a
consequence, there are many religions which teach man to struggle through life, isolating
himself from happiness and from anything providing pleasure, in order that he may win
an escape from the person that he really is and from the responsibility which that brings.
A horde of religious acts are saddled on grieving sinners with the solemn promise that by
 keeping these works, the sinner somehow will gain favor before a holy God. Sinners are
led to believe that by these works they may gain the favor of God and release from the
judgment which they deserve. Romans 1–6 explains that such an approach to salvation is
part of the broad way which leads to destruction (Matt. 7:13). Or, just as bad, many teach
that God’s work through Christ on the cross was not quite adequate to achieve a man’s
salvation without certain vital works which the sinner must contribute.
The first half of the book of Romans corrects this crucial error which actually diverts the
sinner from God’s wonderful and absolutely free saving grace which He has provided for
mankind freely as a gift. It deals clearly with the technical, legal means by which God has
made this provision available for fallen man without impugning God’s own
righteousness. God is perfectly just. In His perfect righteousness He will not make one
step which would make Him unjust in order to save fallen man. He will not accept any
work which a person may offer to Him as a basis for the sinner’s salvation. The first half
of the book of Romans is a treasure in that it resolves this otherwise insolvable problem.
It explains precisely how God is able to save fallen mankind without Himself becoming
guilty by forgiving man without a just basis for doing so. And you may be sure that
however God would work out the complex problem of saving those of fallen mankind
who do respond to His free gift, it will be done in complete justice. While multitudes
have tried to provide a means for God to forgive them, Paul in Romans very clearly
explains that there actually is only one way by which a person can be saved. It is the way
which has been provided by God as a free gift on the basis of the finished work of the
Messiah.

B. Paul’s message to believers.

The Book of Romans not only contains repeated references to the gospel but it also is
clear that Paul, as He was writing to the Roman church, was seeking to build up those
who already had become believers in their faith, obedience and service to the Lord. Paul
had never been to Rome when he wrote the Roman epistle. He did not know most of the
hordes of people who lived there. Primarily he was writing to a people who already had
become saints, that is, a people set apart through their faith in Christ. Now it must be
clear that these “saints” to whom he addresses the book in chapter one are not people who
have been so appointed by other people or so honored by a church. These are people who
have been made “saints” by God through His work on their behalf. That is to say, they
are a people who have been “set apart” in holiness by an act of God Himself. He so calls
them in Romans 1:7 when he says: “… to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called
saints!” * Notice that the infinitive, “to be,” has been supplied in most translations. That
immediately implies to many readers that one distant day in the future also may possibly
become saints. The supplying of the infinitive, “to be” actually obscures the message
which develops in the following chapters about what God does for the one who believes.
The person who has responded to the gracious gift of God which is provided through the
gospel actually has been set apart, made a saint positionally, by God’s free gift of His
own holiness which He has given to them through Christ. It is something which is done
by God and not by any church. Indeed, it is something which already has been done by
God to everyone who is a believer. From that moment when he believes, the believer has
been provided with a righteousness which enables him to appear in the presence of God
without instant judgment and expulsion. We must remember the words of the prophet
 Habakkuk. He says of God, “You have purer eyes than to look upon evil and You
cannot look upon iniquity” (Hab. 1:13). In that great step of providing His own
righteousness to the sinner, God already has made every believer positionally to be one
who has been “set apart,” “a saint” in Christ Jesus. Becoming a believer who is set
apart on a practical basis by his own every day life before God is the theme of the last
half of the book of Romans. Paul will explain that this positional righteousness, the
believer’s standing at the moment of the new birth, actually is the righteousness of a
member of the Godhead. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ through Whom God has
procured salvation for mankind. The thought of Romans 1:7 then is that God Himself
designates those as saints who positionally have been set apart, who have been robed in
His own righteousness. These are God’s beloved ones who have accepted His Holy Son
and thus are accepted in His Son.
In the last half of Romans, the subject of the book, “DISCIPLESHIP: The Final Five
Steps of the Soul-winner,” Paul admonishes these believers about how they should not
turn back to the slavery to their sin natures which had dominated their lives from birth
and which still was a very real factor in their lives. He appeals to them on the basis of
their resurrection in Christ Jesus to go on and to become slaves of righteousness. He
shows that this only is possible through the ministry of the Holy Spirit Who now indwells
them. He explains that the Holy Spirit has one primary focus in His relationship to all
believers whom He indwells. He seeks to lead them into maturity out of childhood in the
family of God. He strives to help them as believers to become mature sons of God. After
explaining something of coming events in prophecy, Paul explains that our exalted
position in the body of Christ requires us as believer priests to use the spiritual gifts
which the Lord has given to us. We are to use these gifts as ministers of Christ in every
relationship.

C. Paul’s concern for his own people.

It is obvious that, while Paul was writing to these believers in Rome, he at the same time
continually displays a great concern for his own wayward people, the people of the nation
of Israel. It is clear that he also writes to help them to overcome some of their errant ideas
about how a man may become righteous before God. These are ideas which actually are
keeping them from receiving the righteousness which God Himself would provide. As a
result, the reader can observe two elements in the book. The initial theme of the book,
which continues to show up throughout the book, is directed through these saints in
Rome who have believed. It concerns their own ministry which they should have among
the Jews who were depending upon their own devices for salvation.
At the same time, Paul does not neglect explaining to the believers in Rome the ministry
which they should be having among lost Gentiles in Rome and elsewhere. As a result, the
Book of Romans contains a message which helps all mankind to see the failure of any
approach to God through legalism and ceremonies or by any other man made means. It is
an approach which helps the Jew to see exactly where God’s chosen people have failed to
become righteous before God when they depended upon their own works and refused the
righteousness which God Himself had provided through their Messiah. It explains why
they must follow God’s own approach which He had prepared for them if ever they
would become righteous before God. That involves turning to their Messiah, Yeshua
HaMeshiach. In a sense the discussion of this introductory section of this book gives a
 rough outline of the contents of first section of the Book of Romans. But this material is
not chronologically developed with all of the discussion pointed to Israel or to the lost
Gentiles to be found in a single section. It will be found scattered throughout the Book of
Romans.

D. Paul’s own example of soulwinning techniques.

Therefore it may be seen that Romans is a book which remarkably sets forth the pattern
which the Apostle Paul followed in winning men to Christ. The book of Romans provides
an invaluable guide for the believer today so that he too can lead a person out of the
darkness of unbelief and out of one’s useless efforts at autosoterism or self-saving. This
is not a fact which is immediately obvious as one begins the study of that great book. And
yet, as the believer begins studying his way through the book of Romans carefully,
considering the impact of each of the book’s sections, it becomes obvious that the Book
of Romans is a book which in its beginning chapters revolves around the Apostle’s own
method of leading a man to Christ. We who long to lead others to Christ will find five
crucial but remarkably clear steps of the soulwinning approach which Paul embedded in
the book of Romans. These plainly set forth the message and the approach which Paul
followed in presenting the good news of salvation to an unbeliever.
Once this is grasped, it becomes obvious that we also must follow this pattern when we
undertake the responsibility of leading a person to Christ. Otherwise it is likely that we
would fail to present the complete, unadulterated and uncomplicated gospel message to
him. Otherwise there always is the possibility that we may leave a person in that sad
situation of which Paul speaks in I Corinthians 15:2. There he obviously grieves over the
troubling realization that not all who had heard the gospel had appropriated the benefits
of its message because they had not altogether understood it. He speaks of the full
message of the gospel “By which also you are being saved, if you continue to keep in
memory what I preached unto you, unless you believed without due and reasonable
consideration.” *
The Apostle Paul was one of the greatest men who ever lived. While he is little
recognized for his great contribution to the western world in history books, the impact of
his ministry of spreading Christianity from Jerusalem through Asia Minor and on into
Europe has had an impact on civilization beyond anything that one can clearly evaluate.
His ministry began at Damascus after his conversion while on the way to persecute those
who believed in the Lord Jesus. His powerful witness swept across Asia Minor, soon
reaching the gates of the Hellespont near Constantinople, now Istanbul, the capital of
Turkey. It was not long before God called him to cross over that narrow stream which
drained the Black Sea to carry the message of the cross into southern Europe. And it was
not many years before the Lord had burdened this choice servant for the people of the
capital of the great Roman Empire. One of the several ways that he was led by God to
minister to this people, and particularly to those who lived in the capital, Rome, was
through the writing of the great epistle to the Romans. It is a book which is uniquely rich
in its doctrinal content and in the scope of its message. This book alone focuses on
explaining the nature and content of the saving good news which we call the gospel,
defining it in careful detail. Indeed, this Epistle to the Romans is the only book in the
 Bible which dedicates so much space to the five major elements which make up the good
news of redeeming grace.

E. Paul first introduces the gospel in Romans 1:15–16.

“So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are Rome also,
for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” *
It is at this point where Paul first mentions the gospel that he begins to develop the theme
of the gospel and to state its content. The word “evangelism” appears in this section as
well. It is found in the Greek verb in Paul’s statement, “I am ready to preach the gospel
… ” (i.e. to announce the good news). He not only wanted to preach this message to these
at Rome but to others elsewhere. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is
the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also
to the Greek.”
The Jews especially needed to recognize that, even though they were a special people
who in the past had been greatly blessed by God, they had to come to God on His own
terms and through the means which He Himself had provided. That is, they had to come
to Him through His Messiah, the One Who was named before His human birth, “The
Eternal Lord will save.” They were the people who had received the Word of God
(Rom. 9:4). Paul says in an earlier chapter that they were depending upon that fact, but
that they needed to know that they had the same spiritual needs as the Gentiles. Both
needed to come by means of the good news, the gospel.
Paul simply summarizes the nature of the gospel, without developing all of its details, in I
Cor. 15:1–8 in the statement that “Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures.” He died that death in place of our own deserved death for our sins. He
further explains that the gospel includes the fact that Christ was buried. In a way which
the Apostle will explain later in Romans 6, we were buried in Christ when He was buried.
When He lay in Joseph of Arimathaea’s tomb, we too, in the sight of God, lay in that
cool, dark tomb below Calvary. When Christ rose from the dead we who have believed in
Him arose from the dead in Him.
As a result of our positional resurrection in Christ, Paul develops an entirely new theme
in the later section of Romans which begins in chapter six. He explains that we who have
risen with Christ should begin acting like it. We should live resurrection kinds of lives.
There are many who preach about the crucified life but you will notice that so often
references to our having been crucified are in the perfect tense. This is something which
took place in the past with continuing results in the present. The identification of Bernard
Northrup with Christ when He was placed on the cross counts me to have been crucified
in Christ Jesus, and therefore as also having been buried and then raised from the dead
after three days and nights with Him in Joseph’s tomb. The believer who has the privilege
of stepping into that tomb which is cut below Mount Calvary, because of his position “in
Christ Jesus,” can say: “I lay right there for three days and nights “in Christ Jesus”
nearly 2,000 years ago!”
As a result, we as resurrected saints are obligated to live, not a crucified life but rather an
entirely different life, a resurrection kind of life. That great theme begins to develop in
chapter six as Paul explains the ongoing responsibility of the new believer. But it also
implies the responsibility of the one who has led that person to Christ of directing him or
her to a life of dependence upon the Holy Spirit in order that the new believer may
actually begin to make Christ his Lord and Master and to live the kind of life that God
desires. As a result there still are five steps in the last half of Romans which Paul presents
to the one who has helped another to find Christ. It is clear that he felt that the soul-
winner must also take these steps before his responsibilities to the new believer are
fulfilled. These steps which relate to the founding of the new believer in his new faith and
instructing him concerning how he may serve his Savior. They will be considered in
volume two.
I have given the outline of Paul’s approach to soul-winning in the table of contents. The
student will find it helpful to refer to it regularly. It will enable one easily to follow the
remarkable logic of the Apostle Paul, the world’s greatest church planter who wrote the
book of Romans. It will help the reader to grasp his logic and the content of his great
message as he unfolds the Biblical methodology of preparing the soil, of sowing the right
seed to produce the right kind of fruit, and of nurturing the young growth to fruitfulness.
One of the problems which believers face in attempting to be a witness to others is the
difficulty which they may have in simply organizing and presenting the gospel message.
What is the gospel? Years ago Dr. Charles Ryrie, my theology professor in college and
later in Seminary, asked the class to state the gospel in 25 words. Not nearly all of the
class succeeded in giving a Biblical answer. Could you? What elements should be
included as one attempts to share his faith with an unsaved friend? What should be the
proper order in telling your friend that he or she has a sin problem that stands in the way
of a right relationship with God? How do I explain just what God has done for each of us
through the cross? How do I explain precisely how He applies the work of Christ to the
one who does believe? These two books on The Ten Steps of the Soulwinner trace
precisely how the Apostle Paul handled these problems in his own extended presentation
of the gospel in the great book of Romans. And Paul is by far the best teacher to answer
accurately these questions which should trouble the prospective soul-winner.
It is fairly obvious then that Paul wrote the book of Romans to a group of people whom
he did not personally know for the most part. For that reason, he proceeds through his
explanation of the gospel very carefully. But Paul faced another problem as an absentee
Soulwinner. He was just as concerned that his written ministry in the book of Romans
should produce the transformation of life which is to be expected from the one who has
come to saving faith in Christ as a product of the gospel. Because this study of Romans
1:17–6:10 seeks only to follow the steps which Paul used in presenting the gospel to
those at Rome, it should be of great help to the believer who desires to know where to
begin and how to proceed in presenting the gospel to an unbeliever.
It should be obvious then that these studies of Paul’s techniques of soul-winning are not
merely a rehash of “the Romans Road” method of choosing verses which are particularly
useful for winning someone to Christ. While that approach has been honored by the
multitudes who have come to an understanding of the Savior and of His cross work on
our behalf, the approach does not even give consideration to Paul’s methodology as a
soul-winner. This study seeks to set forth that methodology in a bird’s eye view of the
 book which examines carefully the flow of Paul’s message to the citizenry of the great,
wicked city of Rome.

CHAPTER ONE
THE FIRST STEP OF THE SOULWINNER: Exposing Man’s Total Lack of
Righteousness Before God (Rom. 1:15–3:20)

A. An Introduction to Paul’s presentation of the Gospel

How many steps does it take to lead a person to Christ? That is not an easy question, for
there is so much that enters into the receptiveness of the counselee which may hinder him
from grasping the details of the gospel. Or on the other hand the primary Soul-winner, the
Holy Spirit, already may have prepared him and enabled him to grasp and respond to the
gospel readily. For that matter, no single passage in Scripture gives a final answer to the
question. Indeed, I suspect that the answer is one which must be answered by the Holy
Spirit as the one who is witnessing cooperates with the work of the Holy Spirit in
drawing that man or woman to Christ. This seems to be suggested by Christ’s words in
that great Upper Room Discourse. In it He marvelously prepared the disciples for the
coming of the Holy Spirit after His own resurrection and departure for heaven 40 days
later. In part He said: “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from
the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who will go out from the presence of the Father, He will
testify of me; and you also shall bear witness … ” (Jn. 15:26–27). *
Not every student of the Scriptures will agree with me on the number of steps the soul-
winner should take or how many steps can be found in the New Testament passages
which deal with that matter. But the student should recognize from the book of Romans
that he is not arguing with me but with the Apostle Paul when he sets forth the ten steps
that he took in soul-winning in this great book. Of all the mines where one may search
out precious jewels for the soul-winner, none more than Romans presents such a broad
spectrum of glittering jewels which may well come to be set in the soul-winner’s crown.
“Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn
many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever” (Dan.12:3). No other passage
presents the broad scope of truths so necessary for the soul-winner to present with such
clarity and detail. Unquestionably the Apostle Paul organizes, and presents in the correct
order, the crucial message which a soul-winner should know and should present to a
prospective recipient of the grace of God.

B. A Brief Survey of Paul’s Presentation of the Gospel

Here is a brief survey of Paul’s presentation of his initial explanation of the nature of the
gospel in Romans 1–6. The Apostle clearly demonstrates through his own presentation to
the Roman people that there are five major elements which must be included when a
soul-winner seeks to present the gospel to the lost. I am afraid that the little wordless
book, which so often used in witnessing to children, omits some of these major elements.
Many gospel tracts are guilty of the same error and present a truncated form of the
 gospel. We who have the responsibility of sharing the good news to the lost, and that
responsibility surely falls on all believers, should be concerned with recognizing what
these five steps are. Only then can we carefully follow the pattern of this godly
evangelist/church planter of the first century when he shared the gospel with others. Paul
shows that there are five essential elements which should be included in the presentation
of the gospel to the lost. Only when he has clearly set forth those elements which should
be included in the gospel message will Paul turn to develop the explanation of the life
which the one who believes should live. Only at Romans 6:10 does he begin to unfold the
transforming effect of the gospel on the life of the believer in order that the believer may
show forth the character of Christ in his daily walk.

1. Mankind’s opportunity to know of God through natural revelation rejected.

Romans 1, which begins Paul’s explanation of the gospel, points out how most men
ignore and reject the testimony of natural revelation. It is a passage which portrays the
remarkable development of the corruption of the human race as clearly as any other
passage in the Bible. Paul begins his explanation of this theme by pointing to the fact that
man for the most part has rejected natural revelation instead of responding to it as I did as
a 19 year old sailor. He speaks of the fact that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness
(1:18). What truth? It is the truth that may be known about God which has been manifest
to them from the creation of the world (1:18–23). The things which God has made are a
testimony to man about God. There are things which one may know about God as a result
of the things which He has made.
Because of my interest in creation studies I frequently come into contact with those who
have studied in the fields of science, biology, geology, astronomy and chemistry. These
men handle the evidence of natural revelation, rarely recognizing that it is evidence
which could tell them what God is like. Romans 1:20 teaches that these men could have
learned about the Creator’s invisible attributes from the creation of the world for these
characteristics of the Creator clearly are seen by the things which He made! And yet they
close their eyes. That which they could know about God they reject, attempting to follow
naturalistic, atheistic explanations of the universe as they try to understand how these
things came to pass apart from the hand of an Infinite Being. Time and chance, two old
Greek gods, actuallybecome the gods which, in their eyes, have produced the creation. As
a result, these “scientists” have a totally different gospel which has no “good news” in it
whatsoever. It says: “Man is just one of the higher animals!” It is a “good news” which
never has saved anyone but has led multitudes blindly to judgment. As the result of their
rejection of natural revelation, verse 20 closes assuring of their judgment for “… they are
without excuse!”
God has given to all of the world of mankind the revelation which is available through
the observation of the heavens, the earth and all within them. This could bring mankind,
as it brought me, to the point of recognizing that there is a God and of recognizing the
fact that they have a desperate need for God. Now this does not mean that natural
revelation, such as the beauty of the trees, the intricacies of a human body or the eye of
the fish ever can save us. Robert P. Tristram Coffin described his troubled thoughts in
poetry as he considered the eye of a dead fish, concluding that surely there must be a
creator. Natural revelation can lead us to God and, as in my case, to a desperate appeal:
 “Lord, save me!” But that cry, based only upon the impact of natural revelation, cannot
by itself save one. As a result, the Creator, Who had touched my heart through natural
revelation, led me through scores of decisions and over many thousands of miles to
someone who did understand the gospel and who was willing to share it with me in order
that I might actually be saved. By the way, That young lady who shared the gospel with
me and I recently were honored at our 50th wedding anniversary just a year after my 51st
spiritual birthday!
I believe that God never fails when the pagan in the darkest jungles of Papua New Guinea
looks to the things which God has created and recognizes that there had to be someone
who created them. When he asks out of his deep spiritual darkness for the Creator to give
him further light, I believe that God will bring someone who will begin the process of
bringing the Word of God and the opportunity to that person to be saved. And who
knows, it may be that you are the very means that He has designated to reach that person
with the good news, the gospel, so that he might be saved.

2. God’s remarkable provision of His own righteousness to the unrighteous

In brief, Paul’s second step in developing the gospel message as he wrote to Rome was to
show the lost that God has indeed moved to meet the sinner’s desperate need. The sinner
who is willing to recognize that he has nothing with which to present himself to God but
his need will come to understand God’s grace and provision in Christ. This fact that God
wonderfully has provided for man’s need is revealed in the latter part of the third chapter.
God has made it possible for the sinner’s debt to be paid and for His own righteousness to
be placed on the accounts of the sinner. As a result, the one who had deserved death for
his sins now in some amazing way finds himself robed in God’s own righteousness. And
Paul also briefly introduces in this sectionthe fact that this transfer of divine
righteousness to the sinner is in some way accomplished through Jesus Christ.

3. Man’s utter inability to participate in the saving of himself by works

It is inherent in the nature of man to conclude that there is some work which he must do
in order to receive the grace of God. This offering by man takes many forms. Many
attempt to add works or law keeping to God’s free grace. Others physically or mentally
will punish themselves for their own sins, never really finding the only solution. Still
others add a work performed upon themselves by someone else. Some depend on their
baptism, whether it was performed on them as an infant or as an adult. Others make the
Lord’s supper a means of imparting grace from the hand of another man, not
understanding that it is only God’s grace that can benefit them. Still others require the
one coming to Christ to go through a special, contrite act of repentance or of yieldedness.
All of these human requirements which are added to the simple reception of the
absolutely free grace of God are a violation of the gospel which Paul preached. And that
message is a major theme of the book of Galatians. The soul-winner who is making the
horrible mistake of complicating the simplicity of the gospel and its provision of free
salvation needs to reread Galatians 1:6–12 more carefully with personal application to
himself. This third step in Paul’s explanation of the gospel to the Romans focuses on this
very area, an aspect of the gospel which is greatly misunderstood.
Paul will tell us in Romans 9–11, a section which largely deals with the future of the
nation of Israel, that the great mistake of God’s chosen people, Israel, has been to attempt
 to become righteous before God by their own efforts. This is an error which is not
practiced by the nation of Israel alone. It is shared by multitudes of Gentiles as well with
the result that they, by their own efforts, fail to obtain that provision of righteousness
which God freely has made available through His Son, the Messiah. He is the One Who
had been promised to Israel for centuries in the Old Testament. This third step of Paul’s
explanation of the gospel corrects this error of one’s attempt to save himself or to add
anything whatsoever to God’s perfect plan of salvation. It shows precisely how the
obtaining of a righteousness which prepares one for a worthy standing before the Lord is
not a matter of self effort at all. This righteousness which God has provided is only
received by faith alone.

4. The Savior’s work on the cross in bearing the penalty for our sins.
It is only then that the Apostle really explains the means whereby God can forgive our
sins and count the forgiven sinner to be righteous. He explains that it is through Christ’s
work on the cross, of taking our own place and of bearing the full penalty for our sins,
that God has provided His righteousness to the one who believes. In this fourth step of
the great Biblical soul-winner, Paul, explains how the work of the promised Messiah
provides grace and peace for the one who believes. That work alone satisfies the wrath of
God against those who stand condemned with Adam, the fountain head of the race. He
explains that this condemnation is for our rebellion against God when we were yet in the
loins of our ancestor Adam in the garden. That work also satisfies the wrath of God
against us for the sins which we have commited in our lives. Paul explains the fact that
Christ did not remain in death but, resurrected from the dead, He is alive. He announces
that this makes it possible for the resurrected Christ to provide complete and ultimate
salvation to the one who comes to God through Him. He explains how the Messiah
brought that righteousness which fallen man did not have and with it the provision of
eternal life to those who believe.

5. The Divine transaction of transferring our sins to Christ and His righteousness to
us.
But precisely how does the court of God make it possible for God to transfer the
believer’s sins to the Savior? How His own righteousness transferred and applied to the
one who by faith accepts the finished work of Christ as applicable to himself? This
amazing and absolutely necessary dual transaction is not really explained until the final
section of Paul’s great presentation of the work of how God saves the lost sinner who
comes to Him through Christ. The fifth step of the soul-winner is almost entirely
neglected in the presentation of the gospel by evangelists today. It explains precisely how
God has transferred the believer’s sins to the Savior when he believes in order that He
might pay fully for them through His death on the cross. It also explains precisely how
the Savior’s righteousness is transferred to the one who believes at that very same
moment. He makes it clear that it is through this means that He gives the believer a
righteous standing before a holy God.
Paul relates this transferrence of our sins to Christ and of His righteousness to us as a
crucial ministry of the Holy Spirit which unites the new believer to the body of Christ
that he explains elsewhere in his writings. As a result of that transferrence, God now
looks on that new believer just as if he actually had been nailed to that cross on Golgotha
 nearly 2,000 years ago. God views the believer as having died, as been buried and then as
having been resurrected with his Savior. He looks upon that believer and He sees the
righteousness of Christ enrobing him! That ministry of the Holy Spirit, which takes place
precisely at the moment that one believes so that all of these things may be counted true
of the believer, is a vital part of one’s salvation. “For by means of one Spirit were [an
aorist tense, looking at the event which had happened to all of the believers in Corinth
and, for that matter, to every believer since,] we all baptized into one body … ” (1 Cor.
12:13). * As a result Paul could say to all who had believed: “Now you are the body of
Christ and members in particular” (I Cor. 12:27). *
A reader should always examine the table of contents of the book which is before him.
Often a brief consideration of the table of contents will speed the reader’s process of
comprehension. The table of contents in this case will reveal that there are five major
areas which the soul-winner should cover in presenting the gospel. These are five crucial
steps which he must cover if the individual whom he is attempting to reach for Christ is
to come to the light of faith in Christ. These first five steps of the soul-winner set forth
the desperate plight of mankind individually and collectively. They utterly close the door
to the individual who has any aspirations to autosoterism, the unattainable art of saving
oneself. To the one who has not availed himself of the grace of Christ, this seems to set
forth a scene that is utterly dismal, hopeless and dark. But at the same time, these soul-
winning steps which Paul explains are filled with a marvelous light. It is in the darkness
of one’s lost estate that the man who finds that he has no righteousness of his own that is
acceptable to the Lord nonetheless discovers that he can receive from God a
righteousness standing. In that righteousness he may enter without rebuke into the
glorious presence of the Lord of Glory.
This dark scene which stands at the beginning of Paul’s explanation of the saving gospel
of Christ has caused many to attempt to place a message at the beginning of the gospel
presentation to soften the gospel and make it more appealing and more acceptable to the
lost. Thus one often hears the gospel presentation begin in this way. “God has a
wonderful plan for your life!” No matter how hard one tries to fit that message into the
Pauline approach of presenting the gospel in the Pauline manner which is found here in
Romans, he will not find a place in Paul’s great soulwinning handbook for that aberration
from the gospel message. The Spirit of God knew what He was doing when He directed
Paul to present the gospel as it is found in Romans. That should become obvious
immediately in the next section.

C. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECTION: Paul’s explanation of a major achievement

of the gospel.

1. Paul’s explanation that the gospel should produce a twofold means of revealing
God’s righteousness to the world (Rom.1:16–17)
This painful but initial part of the gospel message will be seen to be absolutely essential
and properly placed at the beginning of the exposition of the grace of God which one
presents to the lost. That is what will be seen in the larger setting of Romans 1:15–6:10.
Man’s failure in the light of the righteousness of God is the introduction to the
remarkable fact that the Lord has made available His own righteousness to the man who
comes to Him through faith in Jesus Christ. The remarkable fact of the gospel, when
 properly presented, is the truth that the man who has no righteousness of his own can in
some wonderful way become righteousness. The reason is that God in His kindness has
chosen to share His own righteousness with the man who believes! And yet, in the
process of elevating a lost and fallen man to the position where he stands righteous before
God, the Righteous One has in no way compromised His own righteousness! The act of
providing righteousness to fallen man, coupled with the act of applying that righteousness
to man, has in no way changed the Righteous One who resolved man’s sin problem in the
first place.
In order for man to know that, he needs to know what God is like. It is very common for
the man made religions of the world to bring God down to man’s level and simply think
of Him as a very big man, even troubled with all of the sinner’s failings and
shortcomings. But the gospel has a very clear message which erases all such imaginary
concepts of what God is like. And the very first truth which the gospel presents is the
truth of what God actually is like, that He is perfectly righteous. It points to the fact that
God is perfectly righteous in requiring the sinner to respond to His gift of grace by faith
alone. Then it points to the fact that the one who responds by faith, receiving salvation,
must live a life of faith from that point on.
Verse 17 is a summary of the message of the entire book of Romans. This first portion of
the verse focuses upon the way that God’s righteousness is demonstrated through the
requirements of the gospel. It is the theme of the first half of the book, chapters 12:15–
6:10 (cf. 1:17a). It is the theme of this first volume, TRUE EVANGELISM! Paul’s
Presentation of the First Five Steps of the Soul-winner. The second part of verse 17
focuses on the way the believer’s life, properly lived, demonstrates to a lost world that
God is righteous. That is the theme of volume two, TRUE DISCIPLESHIP! Paul’s
Presentation of the Final Five Steps of the Soul-winner.

2. The gospel reveals the righteousness of God! (1:16–17).

The glorious truth with which the Apostle Paul opens his research into man’s awful need
immediately turns to scrutinize what God actually is like. The unsaved man’s imaginary
stand before God pales into insignificance when he actually realizes what the God before
whom he stands really is like. And Paul shows that there are two ways that a man can
learn the fact that God is very different from man, that He actually is a perfectly
righteous, holy God. And as we have seen, he explains that there are two ways that a
fallen man may recognize that God is not at all like himself. The sinner needs to
recognize that God is a being who is perfect in all of His ways, who demands that those
who have offended Him by their actions and by their lives must somehow pay for those
actions.
So often man’s courts fall far short of righteousness today. Rather than requiring man to
pay for the things that he has done against fellow man, the court in effect says:
“You have been a bad, bad boy! Nevertheless I think that you could straighten out your
life if you were given another chance. I think that we will simply slap you on your hands
and pat you on the back. We will send you forth unscathed by justice to do what ever you
want to, even if it brings you back here into this court.”
No, God is not an unjust judge who shares the penalty with the guilty one. The first thing
that the sinner must recognize about God is that He is a God Who is perfectly righteous.
He demands that the guilty one be judged. He cannot simply forgive because the sinner
 has said “I’m sorry, Lord.” In God’s court crime must be paid for by the sinner or at least
by someone who steps into his place and takes his punishment for him. And the gospel,
the message which Paul preached wherever he went (1:16), the good news that provides
salvation to “… everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile” (v.
16), is a message which reveals precisely what God is like. “For therein is the
righteousness of God revealed … ” (v. 17).
But Paul says that there are actually two ways that the gospel reveals to fallen man that
God is righteous. That truth is unfolded in verse 17 which actually is the key to the entire
book. He says of the gospel that “… Therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith, as it is written, the one who has been justified shall continue to
live by means of faith.” * But how does this statement unfold two ways by which a man
may come to recognize that God is righteous? The answer is discovered in the phrase,
“… from faith to faith…. ” But what does that mean? Paul has been speaking in verse
16 of the fact that the gospel is the power of God to everyone who believes. In an
amazing way this reveals the righteousness of God. God requires that the man who comes
to him must believe something in order to receive this righteousness of God. Just what
that something is will be revealed later in the book of Romans. But it is obvious that God
is requiring a response to something that He Himself has done for mankind. He requires
man to respond in faith to that which He Himself has done, that is, by believing the
gospel, “the good news” which relates to the sinner’s need. Paul will unfold what that
“good news” is in the chapters which immediately follow. It is there that the sinner will
begin to understand the great things that God, of His own self, has done for fallen
mankind. As a result, God can count the one who believes to have received righteousness
which actually qualifies him to enter into His presence without being judged.

3. The life of the justified believer should be a means of revealing the righteousness
God (1:17b)
There is a second way in which the gospel reveals the righteousness of God, a way which
too often is missing when the soul-winner attempts to present the “good news” to the lost.
Indeed, it is this means of unfolding the truth that God is righteous which most often
attracts the unsaved man to the Lord. It helps him to see in contrast that he actually has
spiritual needs which he cannot meet by himself and by his own efforts. This second way
in which the gospel reveals God’s righteousness is stated in the last half of Romans 1:17.
It is the counterpart of the first statement of the verse. “For therein [in and by means of
the gospel] is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written,
‘The just shall live by faith.”
This second means of revealing God’s righteousness is by the transformed life of the
believer. Not only does the message of the good news that God has done something to
meet the need of the unbeliever display the fact that God is righteous, but the believer, the
product of that good news displays that God is righteous through his righteous life. This
is a marvelously effective means of attracting the unsaved man to the Lord. He comes to
appreciate the good news of the gospel when he recognizes that his acquaintance has
been transformed and really is altogether different, inside as well as outside. The believer
becomes recognizable as one who has been transformed by his acceptance of “the good
news” of what God has done for fallen mankind. Actually this last half of verse 17
provides the divine outline of the last half of the book of Romans just as the first half of
the verse provides the outline for the first half of the book. That is why I say that this is
the key verse of the book of Romans. In chapters 1 through part of chapter 6 Paul will
unfold just what is that good news which meets the sinner’s need. From the second part
of chapter 6 through most of the rest of the book of Romans Paul focuses upon the
transformation of the life of the believer so that he really may become a showpiece of the
gospel, attracting the lost to the Lord. But Paul also displays a concern that the believer’s
life may begin to display the characteristics of the One who has given Himself to bring
the one who believes up out of the desperate plight of sin and condemnation in which he
lies.
That man can in no way enter into the process of making himself righteous soon becomes
the focal point of the Apostle’s message in Romans four. Every device of man which he
has brought forth as a means of becoming righteous is set aside. That faith alone is the
means of accessing this glorious state is hammered home repeatedly by the great
Soulwinner.
As a result, in the fourth step of his great presentation of the steps of the soul-winner,
Paul tells the man how this provision of righteousness has been made possible through
the person and work of Jesus Christ. Whereas chapter three had only opened the door in
this regard, chapter four focuses upon the person who had done the work of opening the
door so that the sinner’s sins may be resolved and so that the righteousness of the Savior
may bring about his justification. It now becomes clear that the work of the one man,
Jesus Christ, is the focal point of redemption, just as the one man, Adam, was the focal
point for mankind’s universal state of condemnation.
Just how this Person and His work was made relevant to the sinner is the theme of the
fifth step which must be taken by the Soulwinner. It is essential for the sinner to
understand something of the remarkable legal transaction which takes place in the courts
of Heaven. It is a part of the gospel which must not be omitted. The very real transaction
affecting the believing sinner is set forth very precisely by the Apostle in the early part of
chapter six. There Paul explains the means whereby the Godhead is able to reckon the
death of the God Man as the death of the believing sinner. That explanation also includes
the remarkable basis whereby the righteousness of the Savior now can be reckoned to the
account of the one who is coming to the cross in understanding faith. While Paul does not
give a detailed explanation of this point in this book, he makes it clear that the baptism
which accomplishes this union with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection is not
water baptism. He also makes it clear that this is an event which must occur at the
moment of the new birth for one to move from the category of being an unsaved sinner to
the category of being one who has been reckoned on God’s books positionally as a
justified saint.
The best way to examine the subject, “What should I tell a man as I begin to try to lead
him to Christ?” is to examine the approach which the Apostle Paul used as he sought to
stir hard Roman hearts to consider the Lord Jesus Christ and what He had done for them.
Of all of the books of the Bible, Romans most clearly sets forth the full details of that
pattern which we should follow in seeking to lead a man to Christ. Many have used what
has been called “the Roman Road,” a collection of verses from the book of Romans
dealing with God’s provision of grace that is arranged to help a person see his lost estate
and God’s marvelous solution. The book of Romans is extremely useful in this regard for
showing a man the steps that he must take in coming to the Lord Jesus. It is so easy to
turn from verse to verse in this great book and to show an individual what he needs to
know. But it is also easy to shortchange the gospel, leaving out important elements of
Paul’s presentation. There is a reason for the remarkable collection of salvation verses
found in this great book that rarely is recognized. The book of Romans, more than any
other book of the Bible was written to show lost man his sad condition and to make clear
to him what he must to do receive what God has done so that his lost condition may be
corrected.
In recent months I have been entranced with a remarkable series of statements which the
Apostle John made in the little Epistle of First John. In it the writer has made a series of
statements about God’s loving the world and sending His only Son into the world to
accomplish many things for the lost. I have put it together in a little tract which brings
together all of John’s statements about the love of God and its benefits to us.

DID YOU KNOW THAT GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT

HE SENT HIS SON … ?
I. … SO THAT WE MIGHT LIVE THROUGH HIM? “In this was manifested the
love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that
we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).

II. … SO THAT HE MIGHT PAY THE PRICE OF OUR SINS? “Herein is love,
not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation [the
redemption price that He paid] for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

III. … SO THAT HE MIGHT BE THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD? “And we

have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (1
John 4:14).

IV. … SO THAT HE MIGHT GIVE US ETERNAL LIFE IN HIS SON? “And

this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that
has the Son has life, and he that has not the Son of God has not life” (1 John 5:11–12).

V. … SO THAT WE MIGHT UNDERSTAND, KNOW GOD AND HAVE

ETERNAL LIFE? “And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an
under-standing, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in
his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

VI. … SO THAT WE MIGHT BECOME CHRISTLIKE CHILDREN OF GOD?

“Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God.… We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1–2).
There is much stress upon the love of God in John’s statements above, and yet it is clear
that this is not John’s only emphasis or even his initial emphasis as he spoke of the nature
of the gospel. There is a chain of truths which are woven into the text in such a way that
it appears that we have before us at least part of the pattern which the beloved John used
 in his work of winning men to Jesus Christ. John began with the lost estate of fallen man
just as Paul begins there in Romans. Both show mankind their need. Perhaps you will
remember that in First John 4 the Apostle tells us that “God so loved the world that He
sent His Son that we might live through Him” (v. 9). In the work of the cross our God
was meeting the awful, desperate need of mankind. What that need was also is clearly
taught in First John. Man has a sin problem and God was dealing with the sin problem of
humanity when He sent His Son into the world. It also is found in First John 4 that “God
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (v. 10). The price that was paid for our
sins was the death of Christ! Similarly Paul says that “the wages of the sin nature are
death … ” (Rom. 6:23) * There is a message in Romans to those who already are
believers. Paul speaks to them in Romans 8 about how they should go on and mature out
of childhood as believers to become mature sons of God. Similarly John repeatedly
teaches in his epistles that we are to go on in our spiritual lives. That is his thrust in 1
John 1:8–10.
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His
word is not in us.”
It is quite obvious that John and Paul had the same matter in mind, the concern on the
part of God that mankind’s sins should be paid for without mankind having to die for
those sins. Therefore it is appropriate that we believers who have the responsibility of
sharing the gospel with the lost should do it in the Biblical manner. The message begins
with man’s need.

4. God’s wrath revealed against all unrighteousness (1:15–32)

a. The major theme of the gospel: God’s righteousness (1:16)

The gospel as it is found in the book of Romans begins exactly at that point. It first
considers the sin of man. Romans 1:15–17 begins to set the stage for that truth that God
already has made that provision which man so desperately needed, the payment for his
sins. Now the gospel as we meet it at this point in Romans very clearly is a specific entity
in the mind of the Apostle. He says:
“… For I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also. For I am not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every
one that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of
God is revealed from faith unto faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ ”

b. Its initial revelation by means of the gospel’s requirements (1:17a)

In verse 15 Paul has expressed his earnest desire to preach the gospel in Rome. In verse
16 he expresses his utter confidence in the gospel as “the power of God unto
salvation,” whether it be preached to the Jew or to the Gentile. In verse 17 Paul explains
that the gospel is a remarkable means of displaying the fact that God is perfectly
righteous. “In it [in the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith…. ”
Now as I said earlier, the divine outline of the book of Romans lies right here where Paul
first begins to discuss the gospel. Paul has said that “The gospel of Christ is the power of
 God unto salvation” (1:16). In verse 17 he continues: “… for therein is the
righteousness of God revealed.”
This is an amazing thing! The gospel shows the righteousness of God! But how does the
gospel display the righteousness of God? Paul explains. “The righteousness of God is
revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” Now I may be
wrong but I am inclined strongly to feel that the first phrase here, “… from faith … ”
refers back to the faith which is required for the reception of the gospel, the good news.
That God requires the one coming to him to believe the gospel concerning Christ and all
that He has done demonstrates that God is righteous! Not only has He provided in Christ
the means of salvation to a lost world but He also has required one to believe this good
news if he would have the salvation which Christ provides.
It is clear that the gospel, the means which God has provided so that a man may be saved,
demonstrates that God has found a way to save one who believes without compromising
His own righteousness in the process. That God requires the unsaved man to approach
Him in this way and in this way alone demonstrates that God indeed is righteous. There is
no other way for a man to become righteous except through the way that God has
provided, that is, through the finished, earthly work of Jesus the Messiah when He died in
our place and for our sins. And the faith which is required of us when we approach Him
for salvation is a tacit admission that God is righteous. There is no other way that we can
come in our own righteousness or by any righteous act to satisfy the judgment which He
requires for our sin. “For the wages of sin are death … ” (Rom. 6:23).
The book of Romans in chapter 10 clearly shows that this is precisely the problem which
stands in the way of the Jew today. As a nation and individually the scattered people of
Israel are attempting to establish their own righteousness before God and are refusing the
righteousness which would come to them through their believing in the person and work
of their Messiah. The first statement focuses upon the remarkable fact that God has found
a means whereby a man can receive salvation from God by his act of believing faith. That
requirement which stands chronologically before the salvation of every man is a means of
demonstrating that God is righteous. In a later section of the book Paul will explain that
God cannot and will not accept any other inadequate approach of man attempting to
establish his own righteousness as equal or at least acceptable to a holy God. No, man’s
feeble and inadequate attempts at earning salvation never can be accepted by a righteous
God. This demonstrates the fact that He is indeed righteous. That he requires man simply
to accept that fact, and the fact that God alone has been able to make a provision for
fallen mankind which would be able to save all who would come by faith to Him, also
demonstrates the righteousness of God.

c. Its ultimate revelation through believer’s who live by means of faith (1:17c)
I also conclude that the second “faith” found in Romans 1:17, “… to faith … ,” looks
forward to the life which the believer lives as a means of revealing the righteousness of
God. Paul says: “… to faith, as it is written, ‘the [justified one] shall [continue to] live
by [means of his daily] faith.” * That is precisely the meaning of this phrase in
Habakkuk 2:4 where God promises that true believers in Jerusalem would continue to
live by means of their faithfulness when the Babylonian army would invade and would
slaughter and carry many off into captivity. Today he believer is the gospel’s product.
Now that he has saving faith, he is to live his life by daily faith in such a way that it
 demonstrates to the unsaved that God is righteous. The product of the gospel, the true
believer, should be a means of displaying to the world that God is righteous!
I am sure that at sometime you have heard a statement like this. “Many of the lost among
whom we move never see anything of what Jesus Christ is like except as they see Him
reflected in the transformation of our lives as believers.” This is what Romans 1:17b is
talking about. Indeed, that is the thrust of the last half of the book of Romans. But that is
not where Paul’s discussion of the nature and effect of the gospel begins. It begins with
man’s need.

d. THE REAL NATURE OF THE GOSPEL WHICH PAUL PREACHED

Paul has said in Romans 1:15–16 that “… the gospel is the power of God unto
salvation.” But what is the gospel? That is a question which Paul will answer in great
detail in the early chapters of the book of Romans. Undoubtedly the most concise
statement of the details of the gospel is found in First Corinthians 15:1–8.
“Moreover, brothers, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached to you, which
also you received, and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold
fast that word which I preached unto you, unless you have believed without full
understanding. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and
that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen
of Cephas [Peter], then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred
brothers at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have
fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James, then by all of the apostles. Then last
of all he was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.” *
In this remarkable statement Paul has answered the question which stumped many
students in Dr. Charles Ryrie’s Soteriology class years ago. Paul already has reminded
the Corinthian believers that the gospel was the essence of Paul’s preaching to them in
his original contact with this needy city of Corinth. In an earlier chapter he already has
emphasized this fact. He has said:
“And I, brothers, when I came to you, did not come with excellency of speech or of
wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:1–2).
Secondly, Paul has reminded the Corinthian believers that they have made a profession of
faith in the facts of that gospel and in the work performed by the Savior as described in
the gospel (1 Cor. 15:1). Thirdly, he has assured them that their acceptance of the basic
truths of the gospel had brought about their salvation unless they had believed without an
adequate understanding of its message and meaning. What a warning this is to those who
merely have externally reacted to the hearing of the gospel without due consideration and
comprehension of its significance! (15:2). It is helpful for the English reader to recognize
that Paul has used three totally different Greek words with distinctly different meanings,
all of which are translated “in vain” in the King James Version. These three words occur
in First Corinthians 15:2, 14 and 17. The word that he has used in verse 2 suggests the
possibility that some of the congregation in Corinth may have only given a cursory,
mental assent on their hearing of the gospel without full understanding and without real
heart response. Finally, Paul has shown the Corinthians that the gospel which he
preached was the very same one which he himself had received in the beginning (v. 3).
Now Paul actually defines the gospel here in I Corinthians 15:1–8 as he reemphasizes the
truth that he had conveyed to the Corinthians when he had come to them in the first place.
He divides that message into four essential elements.
1. The basic truth of the gospel is the truth that “Christ died for our sins … ” in
complete accord with the Old Testament prophecies which anticipated that great work (v.
3). This substitutionary sacrifice of the Savior is a cornerstone of Old Testament
prophecy.
2. The second truth is “… that He was buried … ” (v.3). And why is this so important?
The answer lies in the fact that false teaching was arising even in that day which denied
that the Lord Jesus ever had become incarnate or that the He was “God manifest in the
flesh” (I Tim. 3:16). An errant attitude on the part of some concerning the sinfulness of a
human body had produced this error. False teachers had concluded that, since man sinned
with his body, then the body was sinful. Therefore the Christ could not have come in
human flesh. Thus they taught that the Christ was only a spirit being, a phantom who
appeared to have a physical, human body but actually did not. Others taught that God
came upon the human, Jesus, during His life on earth but had departed from Him on the
cross.
There are several other variations into error which obscured, and still may obscure for
many, that work which was accomplished by the Christ in His death, burial and
resurrection.
3. As the third key element of the gospel message, it is important to note that Paul taught
that “Christ … was buried.” In complete fulfillment of all of the Old Testament
promises concerning God’s Son, Who was to be born as David’s son (II Sam. 7:14 ff.),
He died and was buried. Isaiah had prophesied of Him. In fulfillment of Isaiah’s
announcements that He would be led as a sheep to the slaughter and would make His
grave with the wicked, Israel’s Messiah, Christ the God Man, went to the cross, died and
was buried.
“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. He was led as a
lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not
His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare
His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the
transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the
wicked—but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was
any deceit in His mouth” (Isa. 53:7–9).
4. According to I Corinthians 15:1–8 the fourth truth of the gospel which Paul preached is
“… that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (I Cor.15:4b). This
also was prophesied by Isaiah. After prophesying concerning the death of the Messiah,
Isaiah speaks of the prolonging of Messiah’s days. This undoubtedly is a veiled prophecy
of the resurrection of the Messiah after His death for the sins of mankind.
“He shall see His seed. He shall prolong His days and the pleasure of the LORD
shall prosper in His hand…. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
and He will divide the spoil with the strong because He poured out His soul unto
death and He was numbered with the transgressors and He bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:10b, 12).
It amazes me to see how few of those who are witnessing or are preaching for their Lord
today, seeking to share the gospel with the lost, are careful to observe this very
significant part of the gospel message. Yet the Apostle Paul clearly held the resurrection
to be a vital part of the gospel as can be seen from this passage. Does not Paul explicitly
say in Romans 10:9–10 “… that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is the
Eternal Lord, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead,
you will be saved”? Paul considered belief in the resurrection to be vital to the gospel so
that it might accomplish one’s salvation.
A fifth vital element found in First Corinthians 15:1–9 is the fact that the resurrection was
not some secret thing which we must simply take by faith without any evidence. I
Corinthians 15:5–9 mentions six different individuals or groups that observed the
resurrected Christ and who confirm that He did indeed arise from the dead. He was seen
by Peter, by the twelve, by more than five hundred believers, many of whom still were
alive when First Corinthians was written, again by all of the apostles and finally by Paul
himself on the Damascus Road.

A Word to the Jewish Evangelist.

Note that it is impossible to hold the position taught in Judaism today that this chapter is
talking about the sufferings of the nation of Israel. Let the one who is seeking to help a
Jew to see his spiritual plight carefully examine the following material. The passage is
speaking of an individual who was stricken and who died “… for the transgressions of
My people…. ” Furthermore it will be seen in Isaiah 53:11 that this “Righteous Servant”
would justify many in this death. One of the major problems which a Jew has in
understanding this great section of Isaiah beginning at chapter 40 is the fact that nation of
Israel repeatedly has been called the Lord’s servant. But it is clear from Isaiah 42 that this
servant was a disobedient, blind and deaf servant (Isa. 42:18–25).
“Hear, you deaf ones, and look, you blind ones, that you may see who is blind but
My servant, or deaf as My messenger whom I have sent? Who is blind as he who is
perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant? Seeing many things, but you do not
observe, opening the ears, but he does not hear. The LORD is well pleased for His
righteousness’ sake; He will exalt the law and make it honorable. But this is a people
[underlining mine], robbed and plundered. All of them are snared in holes and they
are hidden in prison houses. They are for a prey, and no one delivers; For plunder,
and no one says, ‘Restore!’ Who among all of you will give ear to this? Who will
listen and hear for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for plunder, and Israel to the
robbers? Was it not the Eternal Lord, He against whom we have sinned? [underlining
mine to show that this really is speaking of the failing servant, the nation of Israel]. For
they would not walk in His ways, nor were they obedient to His law. Therefore He
has poured on them [a singular, as often in Hebrew, is used for a plural] the fury of His
anger and the strength of battle; it has set him [i.e. the nation] on fire all around, yet
he [the nation] did not know, and it burned him [i.e. the nation of Israel] , yet they [a
plural] did not take it to heart.” *
It is because the nation of Israel had failed in its relationship with the Lord and in its
testimony to the Gentiles (Isa. 48:20–21) that another Servant would be appointed. He is
the Messiah, the future, unfailing, replacement Servant of the Eternal Lord Who one day
would suffer, when it would be true that “… for the transgressions of My people He
 was stricken … ,” when it would “… please the LORD to bruise Him” and “… put
Him to grief … ” and “make His soul an offering for sin … ” (Isa. 53:8–10). This
suffering servant of the Eternal Lord was to be commissioned with a ministry for the
nation of Israel “… as a covenant to the people … ” [i.e. the nation of Israel] and one
which even reached to provide “… light to the Gentiles” (Isa. 42:6). It is He who speaks
to the nation of Israel in Isaiah 48.
“Come near to Me; hear this. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From
the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord God and His Spirit have sent
Me. Thus says the Eternal Lord, Your Redeemer, even the Holy One of Israel: ’I am
the Eternal Lord your God Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you be the way
you should go. Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace
would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” (Isa.
48:16–18).

Notice several crucial points.

1. Messiah is eternal.
2. Messiah would be sent by the Eternal Lord and by His Spirit.
3. Messiah, the Holy One, would become their Redeemer.
4. Messiah had given to the nation of Israel their commandments.
5. Messiah is Israel’s Rabbi or teacher.
6. Messiah could have given the nation of Israel peace and righteousness.
7. Israel had refused to heed Messiah’s commandments.

If the student of the Word will be careful in his research, he will recognize that this
future, unfailing, replacement Servant of the Eternal Lord would find that His initial
commission of re-gathering the nation of Israel would not be accomplished when He
attempted to do that. He would be re-commissioned for the time to a greater ministry and
only later would fulfill the promises concerning the re-gathering of the nation of Israel.
He addresses the Gentiles and explains how His initial commission to regather Israel has
been postponed and how He has been re-commissioned to be the light of the Gentiles as
promised in Isaiah 42:6.

“Listen, O coastlands, to Me, and take heed, you peoples from afar! the Eternal
Lord has called me from the womb; From the matrix of my mother He has made
mention of My name.” [This has reference to the angelic communication with Joseph,
His adopting father, concerning the name that should be given to the Messiah in His
human birth. See Matthew 1:21–23].
“And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword; In the shadow of His hand He has
hidden Me, and made Me a polished shaft. In His quiver He has hidden Me. And He
said to Me: ‘You are My Servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified’ ” (Isa. 49:3).*
It is clear from the immediately following context that the nation of Israel is not being
addressed here by the name “Israel,” but rather the Messiah. It is He Who was
commissioned to regather that nation according to verses 5–6. The ancient meaning of the
name given to Jacob in Genesis 32:28, “Prince with God,” is the meaning here. Here it
is being applied to the ideal Israelite, the Messiah, whose initial commission had been to
regather the nation of Israel. He speaks to the Gentiles of His failure to regather Jacob
back to the Eternal Lord. And then this “Prince with God” is re-commissioned by the
Eternal Lord.
“And now, the Eternal Lord, Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to
bring Jacob back to Him so that Israel is gathered to Him, says, ‘Yet will I be
honorable in the eyes of the LORD and My God will be My strength.’ For He has
proceeded to say: ‘Your being My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to
restore the preserved ones of Israel was a light thing. For I will give You as a light of
Gentiles to be My salvation to the end of the earth’ ” (Isa. 49:6–7). *
Surely the context of Isaiah 53 makes it very obvious that the Suffering Servant there is
not the nation of Israel. It is the One whose re-gathering of the nation of Israel was
refused by that nation. The Servant there is not the nation of Israel for it is impossible to
hold either that the nation of Israel was righteous or that, in death, the nation would “…
justify many” (Isa. 53:11).
It must be seen then that the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is directly
linked to our sins. “Christ died for our sins.” It was not that some awful tragedy
occurred, as if an accident of history struck the Son of Man, or that somehow man
succeeded in stepping ahead of the will of God. God had sent His Son into the world to
die for man’s sins. According to the book of Revelation, that death which Christ died was
part of the plan of God from eternity. John was led to speak of the Messiah as “… The
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).
It is very clear that God’s concern for man’s fallen state began in His heart long before
He had even created us. That astounding truth is borne out in other passages as well. I do
not fully understand that. My human mind is stretched to its limits attempting to
comprehend that which is stated in Revelation 13:8. There are many implications in the
plan of God which are beyond me but I still believe it for God’s Word tells me that it was
so. Even so, we must recognize that the death of the Messiah in place of the sinner took
him through the loss of physical life on the cross for us as He bore the judgment of God
on our behalf. It took Him into the grave where His body lay for three days and three
nights in our place. It took Him even to sheol (hell) where we ourselves fully deserved to
spend eternity. According to Acts 2:25–31, David in one of the great Messianic Psalms,
Psalm 16, foretold that fact 1,000 years before the event actually happened.
“Therefore My heart is glad and My glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope
for you will not leave My soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see
corruption. You will show Me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy. At
Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psa. 16:9–11).
It is obvious that the Psalm also foretold the fact that the Messiah would arise from sheol
to reenter the path of life, and then ascending to the right hand of the Father in heaven.
There He would return to the joys of communion which He had known from eternity.
According to the great book of Hebrews, the Messiah is even now seated at the right hand
of the Father, saving to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him (Heb. 7:24–25).
But to return to Romans 1:16 and the Apostle’s great statement about the work of the
gospel, one finds Paul saying: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” This is not
the first time that Paul has mentioned the gospel in this book. Already he has said that he
has been made responsible both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, to the civilized and
the uncivilized, to the wise and to the unwise, to carry to them the gospel of Christ. He
therefore determined in this way: “So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the
 gospel … ” (Rom. 1:14–15). Paul had been longing to carry the good news of the gospel
unto the great city of Rome but the Lord deliberately had delayed him from going there. I
believe that the Lord did this so that the Apostle would write this great epistle on the
doctrine of salvation. It is the key source of information on Paul’s approach to soul-
winning and to the soul-winner’s continuing sense of responsibility to the believers of
this pagan city and unto us. It is an epistle in which the Apostle Paul sets forth more
clearly and more precisely what God has done in the work of Jesus than may be found in
any other part of the Bible. In this wonderful way, we who today treasure this great book
of Romans profit marvelously from that hindrance which had kept Paul from preaching
the gospel in Rome until later in his life. The purpose of this study on Paul’s development
and use of the gospel is so that the reader may join the ranks of those who seek to sow the
seed of the gospel in the most Biblical (and therefore the most effective) manner possible.

5. The way that God’s revelation of Himself to mankind through natural revelation
unveils what God is like.
As has been seen above, the gospel message itself is a means of revealing that God is
righteous. How is that? How does the sinner who is examining the gospel, the good news,
discover that God is infinitely more righteous than he himself is? By means of the
standards which it reveals as part of the requirements which God has for salvation! (1:18–
32). You see, the gospel begins with the truth that a man must be as righteous as God
Himself in order to enter into His presence and find himself accepted before God. And
the gospel which Paul preached and which we should also preach reveals this amazing
requirement by showing the utter failure of all mankind to meet that standard. This is the
significance of Paul’s statements in Romans 1:18–20.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness all
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what
may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.”
But there also is another means of revealing what God is like that is mentioned in this
following context. It is what theologians have called “natural revelation.” You see, man
also can learn much about what God is like through an examination of nature around him.
Indeed, there is sufficient revealed about God in this vast form of revelation that man is
held responsible. He must respond to it and to turn to seek God. As I have said, God soon
will provide for that person the gospel which alone can save. The rest of Romans 1 is
devoted to the awful deterioration of the human race because it has largely turned away
even from this universal form of revelation concerning God. It also sets forth the wrath of
God which can only come up on those who have rejected the knowledge of God which
was available to them.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what
may be known of God has been manifest in them for God has showed it to them. For
since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhood, so
that they are without excuse” (1:18–20). *
The rest of chapter one is filled with evidence that the heart of man is exceedingly
wicked. It explains that man has turned from those things which he could know about
God to the worship of man-like images made by his own hands and even to the worship
 of the very creatures which God had made. It speaks of mankind’s descent to follow
every vile way, even to the worshipping of their own bodies and misusing them to satisfy
their base affections.
“… Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful,
but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible
God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals
and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of
their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of
God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator,
who is blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 1:21–25).
Paul shows that the degradation of the human race has resulted in all kinds of
unrighteousness since men are unwilling even to retain God in their knowledge. He
shows that the result is a completely self-centered, anti-social way of life which ignores
its terrible effect on the rest of society and fully deserves the judgment of God which it
will receive.
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them
over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all
unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of
envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters
of God, violent, proud boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who, knowing the
righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of
death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them” (1:28–32).
One does not need to listen to the morning or evening news or read the newspaper very
long before he is faced with the realization that this attitude toward God, toward
fellowman, toward mate and toward self prevails in our decadent society. This
remarkable picture of the fallen nature of mankind is why the Apostle Paul begins to
present the gospel with the fact that man totally lacks righteousness of himself before
God. A man or woman must recognize the helplessness of his estate before God before he
can understand why the only hope that he has is found in the work which God has done
on his behalf. Not everyone tries to introduce the gospel in this way. But this is the
Biblical way. Paul begins by nailing our shoes to the floor and by showing that there is no
way possible for us even to approach God. We are under the wrath of God and we simply
are defenseless. The theme of the gospel picks up in the book in chapter 1:15 where Paul
speaks of his own readiness to come and to speak to them.

a. Man already is condemned by his rejection of natural revelation (1:18–20)

God does not always begin to speak to an unbeliever through the witness of the
transformed life of someone who already has believed. He already has provided a
testimony which is almost entirely rejected by man today. Those who follow a
uniformitarian, evolutionary explanation of the origins of the heavens and earth and all
life on earth already have rejected a universal testimony which God has given about
Himself. Again notice the impact of Romans 1:18–20.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what
may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since
the creation of the world, His invisible things [His invisible attributes], are clearly
seen being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and
Godhood, so that they are without excuse.”
The passage reveals that mankind could have learned much about God through natural
revelation even though they did not have the written Word of God through which He
could speak to them. That which was true centuries ago of untaught people in remote
places is no less true of those today among those who are highly enlightened and who
consider themselves scientists, the repository of all knowledge about earth and its
universe’s history. Mankind today rejects the very evidences which were designed to help
us to recognize that God is the Creator and to understand what He is like in many ways.
As a result, many distort the message brought by the evidence and wrongly proclaim the
message, “There is no God!” The truth is found in the following great testimony. “The
heavens declare the glory of God and the expanse of the atmosphere [and everything
in it] shows His handiwork” (Psa. 19:1).
This testimony of God’s creation is not a form of revelation which will save a man but it
does turn people to the Lord. Paul in Romans One is echoing David’s thoughts in Psalm
19. There the Psalmist speaks of the worldwide testimony of natural revelation in verses
1–6. Then he turns to the Word of God in verses 7–11 to show that its testimony alone is
that which turns a person from a life of sin to the Lord.
I myself am an example of how that happens. I was saved as a result of God’s work of
speaking to me through natural revelation. He used a great silver rainbow at night over
fifty one years ago to awaken me to my need of Him. In 1943 and 1944 I used to lie on
the grass on the scanty lawn behind my barracks on the island of Maui at night, resting
after a hard day of working on Navy Grumman Hellcats and Chance Vought Corsairs on
the fighter line of our land based Carrier Aircraft Service Unit. One night to my
amazement I watched an amazing heavenly phenomenon. The clouds, driven by the
warm, humid westerly trade winds, climbed the volcanoes on the northern end of Maui
and there begin to rain. The beautiful Maui full moon shining through the falling mist
produced a great silver rainbow. It was there that conviction of my lost estate came over
my soul. I responded that very night with the tearful cry: “Lord, save me!”
Now God never has been in the business of saving people simply by means of nighttime
rainbows, although in that case He did use that means to awaken me to my desperate
need. In the more than half a century that has followed that event I have never seen a
another rainbow at night. Surely that one was displayed that night in October just for my
benefit. Were it possible for God to answer a lost man’s cry for salvation simply on the
basis of a silver rainbow, earth would have been encircled with rainbows every day since
creation! No, I needed to know about the work of a member of the Godhead. I needed to
know how His work on the cross of Calvary opened the door for me to receive God’s free
gift of salvation. In response to my prayer He led me all of the way from Hawaii to
Chicago through scores of decisions that otherwise would have made me miss a crucial,
one evening only connection. But God brought me there at precisely the right time so that
I might meet someone very special who was prepared to explain to me that work of
Christ which I needed to know about.
She explained to me how Christ’s work on the cross was God’s special provision for my
spiritual need. I had met her at the head of the stairs of the Christian Businessmen’s
Servicemen’s Center on the first night that I was in Chicago for the purpose of beginning
an advanced course in Aviation Engine Mechanics training. God had led me through a
multitude of decisions, delays, and sidetracks, timing my arrival at the head of those
stairs to be there on the one night that she would ever be there. She had been
recommended by her pastor to the Serviceman’s Center to work in the evenings as a
hostess, but she was there that one night only to explain that she was attending Moody’s
night school program after working all day at First National Bank. Her life was further
complicated in that she was directing the Young People’s program at her church and in
organizing and her work of planning the meetings that the church held at several missions
in the Chicago area. She had arrived that night only for the purpose of telling the director
that she could not possibly do the work for which she had been recommended. Mr.
Wheatley had begged her to stay that one night because the Servicemen’s Center had
been depending upon her presence. As a result, she finally had sent her brother and girl
friend on to Moody Church to a Youth For Christ meeting and had stayed. Thank God,
she stayed by His appointment for my sake!
I marvel at the grace and at the might of God! For my sake the winds were laden with
moisture and blew from just the right direction so that the rainfall might be illuminated
just right by that great silver moon. It was in precisely the right part of the heavens! He in
His grace then had led me through a multitude of decisions affecting me so that I might
arrive at the head of those stairs at precisely the right time. He had moved the Navy to
give me my papers so that I had left the Islands days before my 18 months normally
expected were up. He moved me to choose to go on my first Navy leave when I arrived at
Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay rather than to take my leave after finishing my
advance mechanic’s training in southeastern Chicago. He arranged for me to be bumped
from the flight which I had scheduled from Seattle to Chicago as my leave drew to a
close. At the same time He already had moved me to recognize the possibility of that
happening with the result that I deliberately had arrived in Seattle three days early. He
then arranged the trip across the northern states in a pokey old railroad car that had 8
berths, a pot belly stove and a kitchen in one end. It was He who arranged that I should
not be able to find a room that night, December 2, 1944 there in Chicago.
And undoubtedly it was the Lord who led someone at one of the large hotels in the loop
of downtown Chicago to suggest that I try the Christian Businessmen’s Serviceman’s
Center, that they might help me to find a room for the night. He who brings each star
forth by number (Isaiah 40) brought both of us together just at the right time so that Nita
could begin explaining the gospel to a lost and heavy hearted sailor. She did not know
that this actually was the responsibility of the men at the Center, but then that too was of
the Lord. My heart was ready when finally she quietly was notified that she was not
supposed to try to lead servicemen to the Lord. After her careful witness, it took no more
than fifteen minutes with Mr. Wheatley, while she and another girl were praying in the
bathroom for me that I might open my heart to Christ. At that point I received all that the
Lord had provided for me in His death to take away my sins. You may wonder about this
girl Nita. Right. I knew a good thing when I saw it! In December of 1995 she and I
celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary! When God gives, He fills the cup full and
running over!
Now notice that God led me all of the way from Hawaii to Illinois in order for me to hear
God’s solution to my sin problem to which I was so sensitive far out in the Pacific. God
 always hears the heart cry of a person who has been made sensitive to the shambles of his
or her life and who cries out to Him for His help. He in His great kindness will send
someone to that person (or that person to someone) who can give him or her the rest of
the message which is needed for salvation to become that person’s possession.
I had not fully understood the consequence of my sinfulness for my own life in the 19
years that I had been wandering along, apart from God. I had thought, before He began to
bring conviction on my heart, that there was nothing in my life which might make me a
stranger to God and to His life. I can so plainly remember the day when, as a 12 year old
boy, I quoted Psalm 23:1 to my mother’s amazement. I had seen it on the back of a
Sunday School Quarterly that at one time lay on the little 6 volt radio in our front room.
The words, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want,” sounded good to me. Indeed
the few words that I had understood when I had attended Turkey Creek Sunday School
for a time had sounded good but I really had not understood them.
Actually I was not the Lord’s sheep, neither was He my Shepherd for I had not asked
Him to be part of His sheep fold. How kind He had been when He spared my life when I
had walked through the 12 foot propeller of a Navy Vought Corsair on the flight deck of
the Enterprise, CV-6, just before the pilot hit the starter switch. How kind He was when
He held that pilot’s thumb and later called me into that fold to make me one of His sheep!
But until then I needed to know what every man needs to know, that I had no
righteousness in myself or in any of my works which could possibly satisfy a righteous
God.

b. Mankind’s departure from the witness of natural revelation. (1:21–23)

Although mankind seldom recognizes it, we already are condemned by our rejection of a
form of revelation which God gives to every man on the face of the earth. Paul explains
in these verses the fact that mankind always has had a witness which has been provided
by God. He is speaking of natural revelation, the revelation that comes to all men through
the great and continual testimony of God’s creation. But man has turned from that which
they could have known about the true God to provide gods of their own.
“Because that, although they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful: but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were
darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the
glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds
and four-footed beasts and creeping things” (1:21–24).
Surely here Paul is referring to those early centuries of the human race.

c. God’s resignation of the sinful race to its own way. (1:24–32).

Paul’s description of the awful perversion of mankind which fills Romans 1:21 through
32 is the direct result of mankind’s rejection of the testimony which He has given to them
through natural revelation. It is a perversion which debases the race and leads it into all
kinds of false religion and self centered preoccupation and sexual corruption which
simply leads all of Adam’s offspring farther and farther away from God.
Yes, the passage shows the awful corruption of the human race that results from
mankind’s turning away from that which may be known about God through natural
revelation. Man according to verse 23 refuses to glorify Him as God, to acknowledge that
He is the Creator. They refuse to be thankful and become vain in their imaginations.
 Their foolish hearts are darkened, professing themselves to be wise, the Ph.D.’s become
fools. That is precisely what Paul is saying! These change the glory of the incorruptible
God into an image made like to corruptible man, to birds, four footed creatures and
creeping things. As you go out into the world you will meet people who to one degree or
another actually are worshipping these things rather than the true and living God. The
adoring title that so often is given to our planet, that so often is heard in ecologist circles,
“mother earth,” is but an expression of a long-standing tendency of man to worship the
created above the Creator. One can meet people who have turned to all manner of
uncleanness because they have rejected that which they could have known about God. In
effect they have turned to the worship of their own bodies. The satisfaction of their own
lusts becomes the driving force of their lives.
The first thing that the lost person needs to know to prepare him for salvation is the fact
that he is totally and wholly without any righteousness before God, no matter how good
he has been in their own eyes or how hard they have striven to please God in his lives. It
may seem strange to us, in a world which we see as stained and ruled by sin, to find it
necessary to explain to an unsaved man that he is a sinner. But the very first step that an
unsaved man must take toward the Lord and toward the obtaining of salvation from the
Lord is for him to recognize this fact: “I am a sinner!” In other words, Paul simply strips
the whole world of any claim to a standing before God which would enable them to be
received before Him. But such an approach would seem to leave man without any avenue
of approach to God if the whole world stands guilty of sin before Him. That is precisely
Paul’s point! Apart from the recognition of that fact, the lost rarely will recognize that
they have need for God to help them to resolve their insoluble problem of lacking
righteousness which is acceptable to God and which would permit one to stand accepted
before Him. And the soul-winner must recognize that the fact that we all are hopeless,
helpless sinners is Paul’s major emphasis of the first section of the book of Romans,
1:18–3:20. He repeatedly says in many ways: “Man has no righteousness of his own in
which to stand before God!”

D. The Plight of the Self-righteous Jew. (2:1–3:8)

Some will say: “Hah! We are not like that!” Some will say: “Hah! You Gentiles! You
deserve to be judged! But we are not like that!” God deals in chapter 2 with the religious
in that day when Paul wrote these words. He begins to show us how he dealt with this
problem. Indeed, Paul continues to deal with the Jew throughout the rest of this letter to
the Romans. While writing this letter, Paul is helping the Roman Christians to see how to
minister to those who think that they are above those gentiles and that they have a
righteousness which will qualify them to satisfy God.
Yes, you will meet many people in the world who think that they have a righteousness
which will please God. I met two of them on a narrow trail high in the Himalayas. They
had bones from tombs strung around their necks. Their clothing was matted and their
faces all grotesquely painted. They thought that by isolating themselves from all of their
families and friends, from all that they loved, they were gaining righteousness which
somehow would benefit them someday. I saw many whose religious inclinations caused
them to wear saffron robes and carry begging bowls, thinking that somehow they could
reach a place so that eventually they would satify God. There are many people who fall
into this pattern which is described in chapter two. They are those who think that they can
provide their own self-righteousness and thereby satisfy the righteous demands of God.
One of the things that the soul-winner needs to develop as he is trying to help the lost
man to see that he does not have righteousness worthy of the presence of a Holy God is
the gentle ability to show him that he can do nothing to please his Creator. Nothing that
he can offer to God can prepare him to stand in a holy and just God’s presence. This is
the ultimate test. “Can you walk into the presence of God as you are now?” The answer
must be “No” if the truth is admitted.
It helps to remember a story from the book of Esther. The queen needed to come
unbidden into the presence of king Xerxes and plead for the lives of her own Jewish
people. Had not the king extended his golden scepter to her, she would have been killed.
Just as she had to be accepted by the King as one who was invited at that moment to
come into the King’s presence, even so one must be accepted as one worthy to be in the
Lord’s presence. God will not extend His golden scepter to anyone who has not come to
Him through the avenue that He Himself has provided, that is, by means of His own Son.
It is not difficult to see that Paul in chapter two was seeking to open the eyes of the
religiously proud and self sufficient to this fact. They were and are those who are
confident that they have lived their life on a much higher plane than “those filthy people
who are so graphically described in chapter one!”
Have you noticed that Paul has neglected to open his presentation of the gospel with
“God loves you! He has a wonderful plan for your life!” Surely you have noticed that
such an approach is nowhere to be found in Paul’s introduction of the gospel as he wrote
to the Roman believers. There is not a trace of this approach which seeks to soften the
harsh truth that no man is qualified in any way to stand in the presence of God in his own
righteousness. And this should tell you something. That approach so often used to day in
witnessing does not introduce the gospel with anything which the unsaved man needs to
know. The unsaved man needs to know that he has absolutely no righteous standing in
the presence of God. And that is precisely the approach to the need of fallen man which
Paul is using here in the beginning of the book of Romans. First of all he has pinned us
Gentiles down with our backs to the ground. And then in chapter two he has turned to the
self-righteous to show them that they have precisely the same problem. Now the Jew
would scoff at the Gentile. Look at chapter 2 verse one. They would scoff at the Gentiles
and say: “Well! We are much better than they are!” Paul says: “Therefore you are
inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another,
you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the same things” (2:1).
I am sure that these words did not set very well with Paul’s own people. “Oh, Paul,
perhaps you should have said: ‘God has a wonderful plan for your life!’ ” But he did not.
He said: “You, my brethren, are busted! You have no future before God in your present
state.” In the rest of chapter two Paul sets aside every thing that one of his own people
might think to bring as proof of his own self-righteousness. And as you examine Romans
1:16–3:20, you will find a continuing, positive emphasis upon the wonderful truth that
God alone is righteous. Before Him man is utterly without hope of saving
1

1Northrup, Bernard E.: True Evangelism : Paul's Presentation of the First Five Steps of
the Soul-Winner in Romans., 1997, c1996
 CHAPTER THREE
THE THIRD STEP OF THE SOUL WINNER: How a person receives this
gift of God’s righteousness (3:27–4:25)

The Apostle Paul already has taken two key steps as he has begun presenting crucial
material which must be included in a soul-winning contact. He has shown that rebellion
is present in the heart of every member of the human race and that this is true whether the
individual is a Jew or a Gentile. He has explained that, as a result, every member of the
race stands condemned by God without hope of any righteous standing. Therefore he or
she cannot expect to appear before God deserving anything but judgment for his sins. But
against this black backdrop of sin and expected judgment, Paul then makes a marvelous
revelation. God in His wonderful mercy has made the provision of His own
righteousness, available to anyone who will believe in Jesus Christ, because of the
redemptive work which Christ has done. This same redemptive work which Christ has
provided as a sin offering has been the basis whereby God has been able to forgive the
Old Testament believer who came to Him confessing his sin. And this redemptive work
now is the basis whereby God, without compromising His own holiness, is able to save
the repentant sinner who believes in Christ and who turns to Him to buy him out of the
slave market of sin where he lives.
It is sad but true that the major obstacle which most people face, which holds them from
receiving God’s gift of eternal life, is the fact that one only can receive Christ’s
redemptive work by faith as a gift. This is a gift which in no way is deserved but can only
be given and received as an absolutely free gift. Somehow it is the desperate longing of
the human heart to provide that which the sinner feels is necessary for him to provide to
counteract the fact that he falls short of the glory of God (3:23). Somehow it seems far
too simple for the sinner to receive righteousness as a free gift. It is crucial that the Soul
winner explains that God is absolutely, unchangeably righteous! He cannot accept any
offering or any work by man as payment for his sin in order that the man might attain a
righteous standing before God.

A. This gift is never received by good works but only by means of faith (3:27–4:8)
Multitudes of religious people make the dreadful mistake of concluding that their good
works in some wonderful way will counterbalance those deeds which they have done
which are worthy of judgment by God. For many centuries this particularly has been a
problem for the nation of Israel. Later in chapter 10 Paul will explain how
“… They, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their
own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. For
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one who believes” (Rom. 10:3–
4).

But this problem is not just a problem which afflicts the Jew alone. Multitudes of
Gentiles are caught in the same trap of attempting to provide some element of self-
righteousness. This prevents them from receiving God’s free gift of salvation which
 allows no supplemental payment to be made by man. When a person ignores the fact that
God has provided His own righteousness through the Messiah, Christ Jesus, he attempts
to some degree to satisfy God with his own acts which he wrongly assumes will meet the
righteous standards of God. As a result, he remains in his lost estate. Indeed the product
of this attitude is something like a boast. “I am able to live on such a level of
righteousness so that God must accept me in His presence.”

1. The rejection of man’s boasting of his works for salvation. (3:27)

Paul utterly rejects such erroneous thinking which assumes that man can achieve a level
of righteousness equal and therefore satisfactory to God. He speaks to those who would
like to infuse the gospel with a religious mishmash which requires the sinner to keep the
deeds of the Mosaic law, making that a vital part of that which is necessary for one to be
saved. Paul says to these: “No, No! A man is counted to be just in God’s court of law
entirely and alone by faith and wholly apart from any dependence upon the deeds of the
law to establish one’s own righteousness.” “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By
what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man
is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law” (3:27–28).

2. Justification before God is only by means of faith (3:28)

Paul at this point in his presentation of the third step of the Soulwinner begins to drive
this truth home which his own people for the most part did not then and still do not
understand. Salvation only comes to a man by means of faith. God only justifies a man on
the basis of his faith in the finished work of Christ. He echoes that which he had said in
verse 21 where he revealed that the righteousness of God which comes from God to the
believer only comes by means of the believer’s faith and wholly apart from the deeds of
the law. In his day, just as it is true today in some circles, there were those who wanted
the Gentiles to follow Jewish practices when they came to Christ. But Paul shows that
God is the God of both Jew and Gentile and that both are saved by faith and by faith
alone. No act such as circumcision or baptism can be attached to the believer’s faith as a
requirement for salvation. Both Jew and Gentile are saved by faith and by faith alone
(3:29–30).
To some this would appear to annul the law through faith. But Paul contradicts that idea.
The law still serves a very important function in setting forth in a clear manner the
righteous demands of God. He says: “Do we then make void the law through faith?
Absolutely not! On the contrary, we establish the law” (3:31).* Later in chapter 7 Paul

*
This textual corruption evident in the Egyptian manuscripts argues powerfully for a
return to the Majority text as a more trustworthy basis for identifying the original Greek
text. The New King James Version notes variations in Majority textual tradition which
are supported by a multitude of Greek manuscripts. Often the translation found in “True
Evangelism” closely follows the NKJV, a translation which I appreciate because it does
follow the Majority Greek Text rather than following the Alexandrian Text of Egypt.
Often for clarity, or where I feel that an important factor in the Greek text needs to be
emphasized, I supply my own translation and understanding of the Greek text. I indicate
this by an asterisk (*) following the Scriptural reference. Explanatory phrases which I
have added to a Scriptural verse are in brackets and are not in bold type as Scripture is
 will show that the law even has a good purpose in the life of the believer. In Romans 13
he shows that the believer who is living in self-sacrificing love in his relationship to
others is living in complete fulfillment of that portion of the Mosaic law which spoke of
one’s relationship to others. He explains:
“Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has
fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You
shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and if
there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore
love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom.13:8–10).
In his own case it was the Mosaic law which announced to Paul that he, in his new life as
one now married to Christ, still was falling short of God’s holy standards for his conduct.
But, as Paul has said and will say again, the keeping of the Mosaic law is not the means
of meeting those righteous standards of life which the Lord expects of us. Indeed, Paul
will show that the law does not have any power which could enable a believer to live in a
way that could please God.
Having stated so clearly that “… a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of
the law,” (3:28), Paul now turns to show the Jew that since it is by faith that one receives
righteousness from God, the Gentiles also are included among those for whom God’s gift
of righteousness is provided.

3. The inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s program of justification by faith alone (3:29–
30)
Having stated that “… a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law,”
Paul assures that self-righteous nation that justification is not for the Jews alone but rather
that God’s provision through the Messiah is so extensive that even the despised Gentile
dogs are included. He says:
“Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of
the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith
and the uncircumcised through faith” (3:29–30).
The Jew must understand then that there is room for believing Gentiles within the body
of those who are justified by faith and faith alone. Obviously it does not matter before
God whether a man is a Jew or a Gentile or whether he has been given the rite of
circumcision as a child or not. Justification is by faith alone.

4. Paul’s denial that salvation by faith alone would make the law to be void, asserting
that this actually fulfills the law (3:31).
Paul’s earlier explanation that one can only become righteous by faith and not by law
keeping unavoidably would have raised an objection in the mind of a legalist. “Surely
what you are proposing about free righteousness renders the law void and worthless!”
No, Paul explains, in reality God’s means of providing righteousness to the man who
believes actually fulfills the purpose of the law. The Mosaic law never was given as a
means whereby a man could become righteous. In man’s attempts at keeping the Mosaic
law he should have come to the recognition that such an approach was impossible. It

otherwise. Where I wish to stress a phrase, I have placed it in italics. This does not mean
that this text has been supplied by the translator.
 should have thrown a man upon the mercy of God. A man’s failure to keep the Mosaic
law, which is a fact that is universally true, should have evoked a cry from the sensitive
sinner’s lips. And it would have been a cry like that which arose from the lips of David
after he was forced to face his terrible sins against Urijah and with Bathsheba.
“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving kindness; according to the
multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly
from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin…. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and
gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a
steadfast spirit within me” (Psa. 51:1–2; 7–10).
David did not plead with God on the basis of his keeping of the Mosaic law. In fact he
had broken that law. That was the very thing which so smote his tender conscience. No,
the law and any attempt at keeping its commandments did not deliver David. It
condemned him. It forced him to cry out for the mercy of God for forgiveness and it was
a cry for which David had absolutely no basis in himself. He recognized that only God
could create in him a clean heart and cleanse him from the horrible stains which now lay
across his life. What had the Mosaic law accomplished? It had driven David to God with
the recognition that God alone could do anything about his sinful state. He alone could
cleanse his heart and restore him to fellowship. How indeed could God forgive David for
his sin? Romans 3:22 through 25 contains the answer.
“For there is no difference; for all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God set forth as the price that was paid for sin by His blood, through faith, to
demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the
sins that were previously committed.” *
The Mosaic law had condemned David for his sin. It drove him to cry out for mercy and
for forgiveness. That mercy and forgiveness was graciously given to David even though
David’s descendant, the Lord Jesus Christ, had not yet left His glorious throne above, had
not yet joined the ranks of David’s heirs, though without a sin nature because of His
miraculous virgin birth, and had not yet died for David’s sin. The Eternal God, fully
knowing precisely what He would provide through the redemptive work of the Messiah,
was able to cover David’s sins and forgive him, restoring him to fellowship on the basis
of that which His human descendant, the Messiah, would do centuries later. And God
was just in doing just that. Yes, the major purpose of the Mosaic law was established in
that God required faith on the part of the sinner for Him to forgive that which the Mosaic
law condemned in him. “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On
the contrary, we establish the law” (Rom. 3:31).

5. The imputation of righteousness by faith apart from works illustrated (4:1–8)

a. By demonstrating how Abraham was counted righteous. (4:15)
Paul immediately turns to the Old Testament to establish the fact that, even under the Old
Testament economy, the Lord’s saints were dealt with directly on the basis of their faith
and not on the basis of their works. To demonstrate that a man’s works provides no basis
for God to declare him righteous, Paul now chooses two Old Testament believers and
examines the means whereby God declared these great men to be righteous.
What about Abraham, the Father of the Jewish nation? Was he counted righteous by the
efforts of his own flesh? (4:1–2). Was he counted to be just by God on the basis of his
own works? No. He asks:
“What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not
before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him for righteousness’ ” (4:1–3).
Paul has answered the question by quoting Genesis 15:6 which should read: “And he
believed the Lord; and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” * If the Scripture
had said that Abraham were justified by works, then Abraham would have had that
wherein he might have gloried, but not before God. After all, it was not by works that
Abraham had been counted righteous before God. It was God alone Who would be
supplying the works necessary for Abraham’s salvation. But as we have seen, that was
entirely through the work of Christ. All that Abraham could supply was faith in the
spoken word of God. “Abraham believed God … ” and God counted that and that alone
for righteousness! Six times in this little section the word “works” will appear. It is very
plain that Paul is driving home the truth that salvation is never by good works but it is
only by faith that a man is saved.
On the basis of that observation Paul states this significant conclusion.
“Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him
who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is
accounted for righteousness” (4:3–4).
It is obvious then that Abraham, who lived many years before the Mosaic Law was
instituted in the wilderness, was saved in exactly the same way in which men are saved
today. He was saved by faith and not at all by works. But his faith was placed in the
revelation that God gave to him verbally.

b. By explaining how David was forgiven his sin and was counted righteous (4:6–8)
The same is true of David and of the salvation that he obtained. That which had been true
of Abraham who lived before the law is true of those who lived after the Mosaic Law had
been imposed upon the Jewish people.
“Even as David also described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputes
righteousness without works, saying: ‘Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven
and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute
sin’ ” (4:6–8).
Already we have considered Psalm 51 and its description of David’s agony over his sin.
We have observed his painful plea for forgiveness based solely upon the mercy of God.
Chronologically Psalm 32, from which Paul quotes in Romans 4:7, is a Psalm which
follows Psalm 51 in David’s life. In Psalm 51 the agony of David’s soul has been bared
as he has reflected upon all that had come into his heart and into his relationship with
 God. He recognized that his sin with Bathsheba and his command which brought about
the death of her husband to hide his own sin had broken his fellowship with God
completely. But beyond that, he recognized that what he had done had been sin directly
against God Himself. As a result he recognized that his ministry to others as the king
appointed by the Lord over them effectually was blocked and brought to a halt. Thus he
prayed: “Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with Your free
Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways and sinners will be converted to
You” (Psa. 51:12–13).
Now at this point in Romans 4 Paul turns to Psalm 32:1–2. It is obvious that David was
not offering any good works to the Lord when he pled for forgiveness. He says: “I
acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, ‘I will
confess my transgressions to the Eternal Lord,’ and ‘You forgave the iniquity of my
sin’ ” (Psa. 32:5). In the same Psalm he shows that the forgiveness which he received
was entirely on the basis of God’s mercy. That in turn was directly based upon David’s
faith. “Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; but he who trusts in the Eternal Lord,
mercy shall surround him” (Psa. 32:10). It is inescapable that forgiveness of sin and
God’s provision of righteousness is entirely based upon a man’s faith in the Lord Jesus.
In spite of that obvious fact, there are many ploys by which man attempts to avoid the
heavenly gate over which is written “Let only those enter who believe!” Now Paul turns
to show the emptiness of assuming that something that a person may have done or that
something which may have been done to them prepares them to enter that gate.

B. Justification is never received by any ceremony which has been performed on him
but only by means of his own faith (4:9–12)

1. Questioning the function of the ritual (4:9–10)

In Romans 4:9–12 the ritual which Paul discusses is one which is exceedingly important
to every Jew. The rite of circumcision, the removal of the sheath of foreskin on the sexual
organ of every male, is practiced upon every male child born in Israel. It was given to
Abraham after he had taken the great step of faith which he did take when the Lord
promised him that the offspring of this childless man would become more numerous than
he possibly could count.
“And behold, the word of the Eternal Lord came to him, saying, ‘This one [his
servant, Eliezer of Damascus] shall not be your heir, but one who will come from
your own body shall be your heir.’ Then He brought him outside and said: ‘Look
now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He
said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the Eternal Lord, and
He accounted it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:4–6).
It was only after this great step of faith which brought righteousness to Abraham from
God that the Lord instructed him concerning the ceremony of circumcision which he and
the male members of his family were to practice. In Genesis 17:1–14 the Lord expanded
the covenant which He had been making with Abraham. He promised Abraham that
through His covenant with Abraham He would multiply the offspring of Abraham
exceedingly and he would become the father of many nations. He would have kings
among his descendants! As a sign of the covenant which the Lord was making with him,
this instruction concerning the circumcision of all male children was given.
“This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your
descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you
shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the
covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be
circumcised, every male child in your generations; he who is born in your house or
bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant. He who is born
in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My
covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised
male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be
cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.” (Gen. 17:10–14).
It is easy to see why this rite which was practiced upon every child became a crucial part
of the lives of the people of Israel. Indeed, the rite which was given before the Mosaic
law and only after Abraham had been counted righteous through his faith eventually was
given more significance than it was supposed to have. The rite had been given as a sign
of the covenant which the Lord had established with Abraham when he believed. But
ultimately the rite replaced the act of faith. It became easy for Abraham’s descendants to
trust in their circumcision instead of placing their faith in the Lord who had established
the covenant of which it was only a sign.
How this mistake is like that which is made by so many Gentiles! Baptism by immersion
in water was given to be an outward testimony to the world that one has believed and has
received the righteousness of God by faith. But this rite in many circles has become the
step which saves the one on whom the rite is performed. It is performed on infants in a
diluted form by a dab of water on the forehead with the assumption that these now are in
the Church, the body of Christ and are saved or at least are prepared to be saved by this
rite.
This crucial chapter in the book of Romans is written by Paul to explain that no rite
performed by man upon man is able to transfer the righteousness of God to a human
being. That act of transferring the righteousness of God is one which is performed by the
Lord alone and only on the basis of the recipient’s faith in Jesus Christ and His
redemptive work. This will be explained by Paul in following chapters. Because Paul so
strongly emphasizes that the only way in which one can receive the righteousness of God
as a gift from God is by believing, we can only conclude that salvation absolutely is not
on the basis of works. And it does not matter whether the works are performed upon the
individual or if they are the works performed by that individual. So many people are
confused on this point and have worked all of their lives trying to convince God that they
are good enough for Him to allow them in heaven. But He says to such ones: “Sorry,
access to heaven is only by means of your faith in Christ Jesus!”
But then the Jew will say: “But I have been circumcised!” (Remember that this book has
a strong Jewish flavor and that it seeks to meet the problems which the Jew has with
God’s treatment of salvation). Beginning at verse nine the Apostle hammers home the
words “circumcision” and “uncircumcision” nine times. There are many in the Jewish
religion who are kept from saving faith today by the fact that they have been circumcised.
They conclude: “I am saved because through circumcision I have been placed into a
covenant relationship with God!” It is true that in the Old Testament the covenant
relationship of the Jew was important, but even then circumcision did not save an
individual. One must remember the many thousands of unbelievers who perished in the
 40 years of wandering in the wilderness! It was faith and faith alone which placed them
in right relations with God just as it was in the life of Abraham. Multitudes in the Old
Testament who had been through the ceremonies were excluded from the blessing of God
because they had never entered into that faith relationship with God. Jeremiah says:
“… Among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait as he that sets snares;
they set a trap. They catch men…. Shall I not visit for these things? says the Eternal
Lord? Shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” (Jer. 5:26, 29).
How similar this problem is to one found in many churches today! So many say: “Well, I
was baptized as an infant. I am a member of the church. I am saved!” Let this be known.
No act that can be performed upon you and no act that you can do yourself will ever
prepare you for heaven. Romans 4 strongly emphasizes that fact. Abraham was counted
righteous by God before he was circumcised!
“Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised
also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it
accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but
while uncircumcised” (Rom. 4:9–10).
That act of circumcision had nothing to do with Abraham’s salvation! Indeed Abraham’s
circumcision was only an indication of the fact that Abraham had believed God and was
being obedient to his command as a believer.

2. The timing of the ritual of Abraham’s circumcision: The ritual followed

Abraham’s reception of God’s righteousness when he believed God’s promise
(4:10b–11a)
Paul is very careful to drive home to the readers of the book of Romans the fact that
Abraham was circumcised only after he believed.
[Abraham received God’s righteousness] “… Not while circumcised, but while
uncircumcised. And he [Abraham] received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the
righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised that he might be
the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised … ” (4:10b–11b).
*
No, Abraham’s circumcision had nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham’s becoming
righteous. That entirely was based upon his faith in God’s promise. Neither does infant
baptism or church membership or any other ceremony or relationship save one! Paul is
cutting out the dead wood of presumptions concerning how one may be saved. His
explanation of the worthlessness of that act which one person performs upon another in
Jewish ceremony is the perfect illustration of the fact that no ceremony which one person
performs upon another is of any value in obtaining righteousness before God. And this
should be a part of every soul-winner’s presentation of the gospel, for many who come
forward in a service or who respond to a soul-winner’s personal invitation still are
trusting in some work of man to complete the work of God.
Many years ago, on a young man’s profession of faith in Christ, I as a young interim
pastor baptized him. As we were in the change room after the baptism he turned to me
and said: “Now I am sure!” At that point I no longer was sure that the lad actually had
saving faith in Christ for he obviously was depending upon water baptism as an important
corollary to faith for salvation. I have always regretted that I never again had an
 opportunity to see that young man again to help him to understand the error of his
dependence upon a human act for salvation.

3. In that sense Abraham is father of all believers. (4:11c–12)

Now Paul explains that Abraham’s act of faith, by which he received the righteousness of
God, sets the pattern for all who believe today. We also are to believe and then, as a
result of our faith in Christ, we in a similar way will receive the righteousness of God
from God Himself. Thus Abraham is counted the father of all those who believe, whether
they are Jews or Gentiles, because they follow the pattern of receiving righteousness
through having placed faith in God’s Word. He explains
“… that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are
uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of
circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision [in other words, who are
not only Jews], but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father
Abraham had while still uncircumcised” (4:11b–12).

C. Being counted righteous in God’s court is never received by keeping the law but
only by faith (4:13–25)

1. In the same way that Abraham’s promise of heirship was not by law for it was
before the law was given (4:13).
Paul strongly has argued that Abraham’s faith came before Abraham was given
circumcision as the seal of the covenant which the Lord was establishing with him. Paul
also shows that the same is true of the promise which God gave to Abraham that he and
his seed would be heirs of the world. That promise, like the covenant sign of
circumcision, was given centuries before God gave the Law through Moses. God had said
to Abraham:
“ ‘I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My
covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.’ Then Abram fell
on his face, and God talked with him, saying, ‘As for Me, behold, My covenant is
with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be
called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of
many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you,
and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and
you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting
covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and
your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of
Canaan, as an everlasting possession, and I will be their God’ ” (Gen. 17:1b–8).
It is obvious that these promises were not based upon any framework of human conduct
like the Mosaic law for these promises were given in Genesis 17 while the Law was not
given until Abraham’s descendants were at mount Sinai as described in Exodus 19.

2. If law keeping made one an heir, then faith would be made void (4:14–15)
The reception of righteousness from God by Abraham and by his seed has been explained
to be only by faith and not by the keeping of the Mosaic Law. Paul now explains that if it
were possible for one to become righteous by keeping the Mosaic law, then the way that
 God had made Abraham righteous through faith would loose its meaning and simply
would become void. “For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and
the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there
is no law there is no transgression” (Rom. 4:14–15).
All that had been promised to Abram and to his seed as a result of his faith now would be
set aside. When one seeks by keeping a set of rules to accomplish that which only can be
accomplished by faith in Jesus Christ and His redemptive work which has been
mentioned in Romans 3, he renders void the correct, God given approach to receiving
God’s own righteousness by faith.

3. Thus the counting of God’s righteousness to the sinner is of faith and only as a free
gift. (4:16–23)
Beginning at verse 15 Paul has begun emphasizing the word “law.” He concludes this
section plainly saying that salvation never is by law keeping but it is only received by
faith. Notice the contrast between Romans 4:15 and 16.
15 “Because the law brings about wrath, for where there is no law there is no
transgression.
16 Therefore it [the obtaining of righteousness from God] is by faith in order that it
might be by grace [a free gift from God] to the end that the promise might be sure to all
the seed, not to that only which is of the law but to that also which is of the faith of
Abraham who is the father of us all.” *
The sinner could only fail to keep the law. The only thing that possibly could happen as a
result was the bringing of God’s wrath. That is to say, the Mosaic law made the sinner
aware that he always failed to live on a standard that would please God. It forced him to
cast himself upon the grace and mercy of God. As we have seen, David in Psalms 51 and
32 is the perfect example. The Law was never intended to make a man righteous. It was
designed to make him aware of the fact that he was not righteous! It caused him to
depend upon the provision of God of an animal substitute which bore the penalty of his
sin in place of him on the altar.
The same is true for the sinner today, although the perfect substitute, the Messiah, Jesus
Christ, rather than an animal sacrifice, is the one upon whom the penalty of our sin has
fallen. It is that to which Paul has referred in Romans 3. He has spoken of the fact that
every man sinned in that first act of rebellion in our ancestor in the garden (3:23). But he
has introduced the glorious truth that God has provided a perfect solution to our sinful
condition. He explains that all may be
“… justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,
whom God set forth as a propitiation, [that is, as the perfect substitute price that
was paid for our sin] by His blood … ” (3:24–25a). *
It is to this divine provision that Paul refers to in II Corinthians 5:21. “For He [God]
made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him.” * And Paul has shown that this perfect substitute, this
redemption, and this gift of God’s righteousness is only available “… through faith”
(3:25b). And this is precisely the truth which Paul is driving home to his readers in
Romans 4:16.
“Therefore it [the believer’s reception of the righteousness of God)] is of faith that it
might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not
only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of us all.” *
It is important to notice how often the word “faith” rings out through this chapter. That
word and other words for believing are found in the following verses.

1. “… Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness” (v.3).
2. “But to him who does not work but believes on Him Who justifies the ungodly,
his faith is counted [to him] for righteousness” (v.5).
3. “Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the
uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham for
righteousness” (v.9).
4. “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith
which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who
believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to
them also” (v.11).
5. “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or
to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (v.13).
6. “For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise
made of no effect … ” (v.14).
7. “Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise
might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those
who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all … ” (v.16).
8. (“As it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’) in the presence of
Him whom he believed—God, Who gives life to the dead and calls those things
which do not exist as though they did” (v.17).
9. “… Who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of
many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be” (v.18).
10. “… And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already
dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb
… ” (v.19).
11. “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was
strengthened in faith, giving glory to God” (v.20).
12. “… And being fully convinced [fully persuaded] that what He had promised
He was also able to perform” (v.21).
13. “Now [it was written] also for us: It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him
Who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead … ” (v.24).
These verses should have a box drawn about them in the soul-winner’s Bible so that they
will stand out before the eyes of the one who needs to reject any system of saving himself
through good works or whatever and take the step of faith in accepting God’s provision
of the finished work of Christ. In this passage there is great emphasis placed upon the fact
that Abraham was made righteous by God because of his faith, believing implicitly that
which God said to him. Verse 16 closes with the statement that Abraham stands as the
father of all who have similar faith. “As it is written, ‘I have made you a father of
many nations’ in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, Who gives life to the
dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did” (4:17). Paul points
to the audacity of Abraham’s faith. After all, he was 99 years old when the promise was
given that he would have offspring. But Abraham,
“… contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many
nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And not
being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead [since he was
about a hundred years old], and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at
the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to
God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was able to perform.
And therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness” (4:18–22).
In the light of Paul’s argument it is inescapable that it was only on the basis of
Abraham’s faith that righteousness was imputed to him. But Paul says that this truth to
which he has turned in Genesis concerning God’s imputation [reckoning righteousness to
his account] was not for Abraham’s sake alone (4:23). As God dealt in this way with the
father of all who believe, that which was said in Genesis 15:6 was
“… for us also, to whom it [God’s own righteousness] shall be imputed if we believe
on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, Who was delivered for our
offenses and was raised again for our justification” (4:24–25).
It is worthy of note that this is the first time that Paul has introduced this theme of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. A careful study of Paul’s teaching will show that Paul makes
the resurrection of Jesus Christ after His work on the cross a vital element of the gospel.
The resurrection is included in that which we must believe in order to receive salvation.
Paul says that in Romans 10:9–10. He speaks of
“… the word of faith which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as
LORD [that is, if you acknowledge that Jesus is the Eternal Lord], and believe in
your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the
heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to
shame,’ for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over
all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Eternal
Lord shall be saved.’ ”
How often those who call themselves “soul-winners” have left out this vital part of the
gospel, the resurrection! The soul-winner needs to listen to the anticipation of the
Messiah as, in sheol, He awaited His resurrection. “… Many will see it [My resurrection
out of the noisy pit], and will begin to fear and will trust in the Eternal Lord” (Psa.
40:3).
I have heard an evangelist try to win people to faith in Christ for as long as a week
without his ever mentioning the crucial facts that Christ not only died for the sinner’s sin
but also that He does not lie in a Judaean tomb, having been raised from the dead. He
preached with fire and fervor about how hot hell was and about how certain it was that
the sinner was going to go there. Then and only in his invitation did he encourage sinners
to come forward and receive Christ as their Savior. Never once in the series of messages
did he explain the sinner’s need for a righteousness which could qualify him to stand in
the presence of a holy God. Never once did he clearly identify Jesus as the Divine One
Who was sent from heaven to die as man in man’s stead. Never once did he announce
that God actually had made provision for the lost sinner by making available to the sinner
His own righteousness through the work of His Son, the Messiah. Never once did he
explain how Christ had resolved the universal problem of the descendants of Adam by
dying in the place of all mankind because of His great love and the need to satisfy the
perfect righteousness of God. And never once did he show what the one who does believe
in the finished work of Christ now has in the way of peace with God and perfect access
into the grace which had been provided. Neither did he describe the joy that would come
upon one’s reception of that wonderful hope of the glory of God.
While “the evangelist” preached long about how hot hell was and about how a man
earnestly should long and should seek to escape its flames, he totally neglected these vital
elements of the gospel: 1. The fact that we have a risen Christ Who has paid the awful
price of death in our place and for our sin. 2. The fact that our crucified Christ is our risen
Savior Who now is seated in heaven. As a result, He is the only Savior for He alone is
“… able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He
always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).
This crucial truth is important for the soul-winner to understand and to present to a lost
soul. The next two chapters in Romans will develop just how important a factor the
resurrection of Jesus Christ really is. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a key element of
the gospel, the good news which brings about the deliverance of a believer from his
offenses and provides the basis for our justification. In chapter six the careful reader will
discover that it is only in the resurrection of the Savior that the one believes can be
counted to have paid for his own sins on the cross and raised from the dead in the Savior.
It is exceedingly important for the soul-winner to recognize that in Romans 10:9 Paul is
not demanding that the new believer instantly submit to the entire will of Christ as his
lord and master if he really would be saved. Ah, there is the ugly head rearing up,
suggesting the necessity of man’s adding works, of adding something that he must do
before he can be saved! I insist that very few of the multitudes who have believed have
even come close to that yieldedness which is seen in the conversion of the Apostle Paul.
Normally that state of yieldedness is an experience which the mature believer can only
acknowledge as a process that may take years to take place. Indeed, I believe that is
precisely the meaning which Paul intended to be understood by his words in Philippians
three. The Greek word for “Lord” which Paul uses here in Romans 10:9 does refer in
some contexts to one’s human or Divine master. But this Greek word, kurios, also is the
Greek word which translates the great covenant name, YHWH, “the Eternal Lord,” in
numerous New Testament quotations from the Old Testament. An examination of the
context in which Paul uses in here in Romans 10:9–10 makes it inescapable that we
recognize that Paul is insisting that a cursory knowledge of the identity of the Savior,
such as only recognizing Him as a perfect man, even a God sent man, is inadequate. The
one who is seeking to be saved must come to understand that the man Jesus is the
Messiah, the Anointed One long promised, always translated “Christ” in the New
Testament. He must recognize that in prophecy He repeatedly is called Jehovah, the
Eternal Lord, in the Old Testament and that He is the member of the triune Godhead who
willingly arose from His throne in glory in order to become man and become mankind’s
sinbearer.
I have told you that years ago I heard an evangelist tell a tear jerking story about an
indigent who dreamed his way through a preaching service in a rescue mission. Then he
weaved up the aisle and responded to the invitation by saying: “I don’t know who dis
Jesus is but I want to become one of his gang.” Do you suppose that the evangelist had
done his proper work? Had he really finished his work as an evangelist and actually had
led a soul to Christ when that man came forward? Or had he only succeeded in chalking
up another “conversion,” one that fell far short of giving him a jewel in his Soul-winner’s
crown in glory? I greatly fear that the one who had been counted as a convert still
wanders lost through the streets of some great city if he even is alive today. I have always
thought that the Lord’s tally of the number who have come to Christ under our ministry
will be much more accurate than any list of converts that we could ever keep.
This then is the reason for Paul’s emphatic conclusion to chapter 4. The righteousness of
God can only be imputed or counted as it is applied by God Himself to our account “… If
we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered
for our offenses and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:24–25). It is clear
then that the third step, up which the soul-winner must lead a poor, lost soul, is to help
that person to realize that there is absolutely nothing that he or any one else can do to
prepare him for the blessings of God’s reception in His court of law. Only that which
God Himself has done can transform a sinner to become a person who is counted
righteous by the Judge Himself. The emphasis upon the word “faith” in 3:27–4:25 must
be drilled into the thinking of the seeker. It is only by faith in the finished work of Christ
that he or she may be included among those whom God has counted to be righteous. How
that is accomplished in God’s court still lies ahead in another chapter.
2

CHAPTER FOUR
THE SOUL-WINNER’S FOURTH STEP: Explaining how Christ has
provided His own Righteousness to us (5:1–21).
The soul-winner needs to recognize that it is at this point in the book of Romans that Paul
returns to the explanation of the means by which God has provided His own
righteousness to man in his lost estate. It is not enough when the soul-winner gets a
person to say “Yes, I will accept Christ as my Savior” or “Yes, I want to commit myself
to Christ.” (The soul-winner should note that this last phrase is far from harmonizing with
that which God requires of the one who is coming to Christ. It avoids recognizing the
substitutionary work of the Savior. Unless that person understands who Christ is and
what God has done for him through the work of Christ on the cross, it is not likely that he
actually gets saved in responding to that invitation. This also should include
understanding of what salvation brings to him).
I have long been troubled of heart as I have felt a deep concern for those who did come
forward at the fiery urging of the evangelist that I mentioned in the last chapter. Did the
counselors who sat down with them really meet their needs? Was the gospel actually
explained to the unsaved after they came forward to the counseling rooms (since it was
not in the sermons)? Or did those who came forward only hear inadequate fragments after
the manner of the messages of “the evangelist?” Is this perhaps one reason why there are
so many “secret unbelievers” on the rolls of the churches of our land? Have these folks
ever really heard the gospel clearly and had the opportunity of believing the good news
which saves? Indeed, have they ever really understood the gospel at all? As recently as
yesterday I heard a pastor, not my own, a man of many years experience attempting to

2
 preach the gospel but utterly omitting the fact that he was referring to a resurrected
Savior.
EVANGELIST
Evangelist! How sweet the name
Of him who heralds saving grace!
How lovely on the mountain tops
The feet of him who bears the news
That Christ Who died, now lives to save!
Evangelist! Give not the name
To him who damns to Christless hell
The trembling soul who longs to fly
Its burning flame, betrayed by him
Who failed to preach this saving grace!
Evangelist! Reserve the name
For him whose message rings so clear:
“Christ died for you!” He paid the price,
That spotless Lamb, for all your sin!
Christ rose that you might live! (Ben)
Most people actually have very little or no idea of all that happened at Calvary when the
Savior took our place to satisfy the righteousness of God. Chapter 5 begins to unfold the
nature of the work of Christ in our behalf and what it accomplished for us. This should
immediately remind the soul-winner of the truths that began to be unfolded in the latter
part of chapter 3. There Paul began to speak of the fact that God’s righteousness has been
made available. Of course it has been made available through Jesus Christ and what He
did on the cross.
A. Christ’s work on the cross, God’s altar, brings us grace and peace (5:1–5)
1. Our position: justified by faith. (5:1–5)
Among the essential truths which a newcomer to the Lord must know is that when he is
justified by faith in Christ, the old enmity which once was in his heart toward God now
has been erased. That peace with God and that peace within for which fallen man so often
longs now is available as the provision of peace with God is appropriated when one
accepts Christ.
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the
blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, Who has made both (Jew and Gentile)
one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, between us, having
abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in
ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from two, thus making peace,
and that He might reconcile them both [Jew and Gentile] to God in one body
through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached
peace to you who were far off and to those who were near. For through Him we both
[Jew and Gentile] have access by one Spirit to the Father.” (Eph. 2:13–18).*
*
This textual corruption evident in the Egyptian manuscripts argues powerfully for a
return to the Majority text as a more trustworthy basis for identifying the original Greek
text. The New King James Version notes variations in Majority textual tradition which
are supported by a multitude of Greek manuscripts. Often the translation found in “True
 While Paul clearly is emphasizing that enmity which is removed between Jew and
Gentile in this passage, it also is clear that through the cross of Christ the enmity which
we had toward God is erased. As a result we who are believers now have access into
God’s presence. And as a result the means now is available whereby the believer actually
can begin enjoying internal peace. That truth will be developed and explained by the
Apostle more fully in Romans eight.
This removal of the animosity of the unsaved toward God is the theme with which Paul
begins his discussion of the fourth step of the Soul-winner. Later in Romans 8:6–8 Paul
will even more emphatically point out this enmity which the unsaved man has toward
God. It is an enmity which absolutely prevents him from offering anything in the way of
works or ceremony to God as a means of making himself righteous before God. There he
describes the unconquerable state of the mind of the unsaved man in its total enmity
toward God, wholly inclined and destined toward death.
“For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace.
Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law
of God, nor indeed can it be. So then those who are in flesh [the sphere of existence
of the unbeliever] cannot please God.” (Rom. 8:6–8)*
The sweet message of Romans 5 lies against the dark and gloomy background of the
earlier chapters of the book of Romans. Those chapters describe the awful consequences
which man faces because of his sinful nature and the many acts of sin which that
produces in his life. Paul now takes up again the theme of the believer’s being counted to
be righteous in God’s court because of the awful price that Christ paid for him on the
cross. He suddenly turns the gloomy scene which the sinner faced into a cause for peace
and great rejoicing in the expectation of what lies ahead for him. “Therefore, having
been justified by faith … ,” the phrase which opens chapter 5 states our wonderful
position which the believer enjoys when he has believed in the Savior.
2. The provisions of our position when we are justified by faith (5:1b)
“Therefore, having been justified by faith [already] we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also [already] we have access by
faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God”
(5:1–2). *
Be aware that in this verse many translations make the mistake of following the
Alexandrian text, a very limited and very often contradictory Greek textual source from
Egypt. As I have pored over the many erratic, variant readings of the less than a half a
dozen Egyptian manuscripts and have compared them in most of the New Testament
books, I have found that they continually disagree among themselves, indeed often many
scores of times in a single book of the Bible. In these documents the truth that we
believers who are in Christ Jesus already have peace with God since when we have

Evangelism” closely follows the NKJV, a translation which I appreciate because it does
follow the Majority Greek Text rather than following the Alexandrian Text of Egypt.
Often for clarity, or where I feel that an important factor in the Greek text needs to be
emphasized, I supply my own translation and understanding of the Greek text. I indicate
this by an asterisk (*) following the Scriptural reference. Explanatory phrases which I
have added to a Scriptural verse are in brackets and are not in bold type as Scripture is
otherwise. Where I wish to stress a phrase, I have placed it in italics. This does not mean
that this text has been supplied by the translator.
 believed in Christ, is changed into a command that we should have peace with God. In
following this textual tradition these translations take away Paul’s presentation of this
peace with God which results from our faith. These translations make the verses into an
encouragement for the justified believer to begin living in peace with God and to begin
rejoicing in what God has done. This approach totally ignores the flow of the argument of
the book. Paul does not begin exhorting believers to respond to the grace of God and to
begin a life pleasing to God until he reaches well into the second great section of the
book at chapter 8. There he speaks of the need of grounding and discipling the new
believer in his faith. There he begins to call upon us to enjoy a proper relationship to the
Holy Spirit so that we indeed can enjoy peace. Indeed, the chapter clearly indicates that
the enmity already has been erased between the believer and God because he is dwelling
in the sphere of the Spirit (Rom.8:9).
3. Our response to the love of God (5:2b–5)
The truth taught here in Romans 5:1–2a, preserved in the Majority Greek text, is twofold.
1. As a result of the great work of Christ which provides, the sole basis for our
justification, we now do have peace with God.
2. We have complete access by faith into the position which that grace provides and
in which we stand. Later the Soul-winner will want to introduce the new believer into one
of the great aspects of this access which we have by faith. It includes access into the very
presence of Christ, our great High Priest, so that we can come to Him at any moment in
prayer (Heb. 4:14–16).
“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High
Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as
we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we
may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:14–16).
This fact transforms the attitude of the believer toward the life circumstances which still
surround him. It changes his response to his trials. This truth will be further developed by
Paul in chapter 8.
“We glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation produces patience and
patience produces experience and experience produces hope, and hope does not
make one ashamed because the love of/for God has been abundantly poured out in
our hearts by the Holy Spirit which was given unto us” (5:3–5).*
If we take the Greek word normally translated “of God,” to be a subjective genitive, then
it would refer to God’s love for us which, because of the work of the Holy Spirit, has
been poured out in our hearts. On the other hand, the form could be taken to be an
objective genitive. In that case the word would say in English that the Holy Spirit is the
One who teaches a new believer to love God with an undying love. But how did all of
these wonderful things which are now our present possessions come to be given to us?
How was it done? Now Paul finally considers that it is time to begin explaining the
means whereby the dreadful plight of the sinner is resolved by God.
B. Because of God’s love, Christ died in our own place, satisfying the wrath of God
against us (5:6–8).
1. The basis for our justification: Christ’s death for the ungodly. (5:6–8)
One of the most glorious truths which ever will cross the mind of man is this. “… When
we were yet without strength [in other words, when we still were unsaved] in due
 time Christ died for the ungodly” (5:6). Notice that the death of Christ for the ungodly
now becomes a reoccurring theme in this passage. It is found again in verse 8. “But God
demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died
for us.” We were sinners, undone and without hope before a holy God. Yet the love of
God and His desire to satisfy the demand of His own righteousness without destroying
those whom He loved, brought forth the free and gracious provision of a means of
redemption for us. We had no cause for hope that God would help us out of our
impossible predicament, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps
for a good man someone would even dare to die” (5:7).
But Someone did die! And it was not another sinner whose death would have made no
difference in resolving our sin problem and its death sentence. It was One Who was
spotless, Who “… knew no sin … ” (2 Cor. 5:21), Who “… was … without sin” (Heb.
4:15).. In Psalm 41 He says of Himself through the pen of His human ancestor, David,
while awaiting His own resurrection: “As for me, You will uphold me in My integrity,
and will set me before your face forever” (Psa. 41:12). The word translated “integrity”
here is the word which was used of the Passover lamb which had to be spotless and
perfect in every way before it could be sacrificed on Passover night (cf. Exo. 12:5–6).
And it was God’s spotless lamb, the Lord Jesus, who died in our place long ago. “God
commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”
(5:8).
2. The deliverance from wrath that justification brings is through Christ (5:9).
This theme of the death of Christ on our behalf reoccurs again in verse 9. The wrath
which we deserved as sinners before a holy God now is resolved through the death of
Christ. Paul says: “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall
be saved from wrath through Him.” It is clear that justification, or being counted
righteous in God’s holy court of law, is a present possession since the event already has
taken place in the past. He says: “… having now been justified by His blood…. ” But it
also is clear that this event which is past for the believer also brings results which still are
future. “… We shall be saved from wrath through Him.” The question of our eternal
destiny forever has been settled. The believer does not have to wait for the judgment seat
of Christ or for the great white throne to find out if God’s wrath yet awaits him. He need
never fear that at someday in the future he still will face the wrath of God. In the
justification which Christ obtained, which He paid for with His own blood, God forever
assures us of the fact that “ … we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”
C. The satisfaction of judgment brought by Christ’s death in our place saves us from
the wrath of God (5:10a)
Ah, here is one of the many results of the death of Christ. “But God commended His
love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” We are saved
from wrath through Him. And surely the sinner must come to recognize that, in his fallen
state, he fully deserves the wrath of God. But an essential part of the gospel presentation
should include the fact that, because Christ’s death took upon Himself the wrath of God
which we deserved, it now is no longer is due us. The enmity of which Romans 8:6–8
speaks is gone because “… you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the
Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is
not His” (Rom. 8:9–10). How that is possible will be explained later by Paul. The very
next part of Romans 5:10 presents yet another of the results of the death of Christ.
D. Christ’s present life assures us of reconciliation to God and of our ultimate
salvation. (5:10b–11)
“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved through the fact that He lives”
(5:10).* Once again Paul is returning to the glorious theme of the resurrection of Christ
He is living! And because Christ lives, we can be saved. We too may live! Now the
Apostle in this verse is paralleling the benefits of the death of Christ for us with the
wonderful benefits of the fact that Christ has been resurrected and now lives in heaven.
Because He is there, He is “… able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto
God by Him, seeing that He ever lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).
Above all, one should understand that Paul is not saying that the life which Jesus lived
here on earth was a means of saving us. The author is referring to the present life of the
Lord Jesus Who now is ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Father. It is
because He now is living and ministering on our behalf as our great high priest that He
can save us. This present session and ministry of the Messiah is prophesied in Psalm
110:1 and 4.
“The Eternal Lord said unto my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make Your
enemies Your footstool.’ … The Lord has sworn and will not relent. ‘You are a
priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”
As a result of Christ’s resurrection and ascension, we who are believers have great cause
for joy in what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ Who has brought us back
from our alienation from God into a state of being reconciled. Reconciliation to God
means that we are brought back into an amiable relationship with God. By the way, the
Bible never even hints that God is reconciled to us. Rather it is we who are reconciled to
God through the death of Jesus Christ. This is the meaning of verse 11 where the Greek
noun for “reconciliation” is wrongly translated “atonement” in the King James Version.
The Old Testament word which is translated “atonement” is a word which speaks of the
covering of the believer’s sin which the substitutionary animal provided. It is not properly
used of Christ’s work which took away sin. Compare the words of John the Baptist when
he first looked upon Christ. “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the
world” (Jn.1:29). Paul is referring to that glorious state achieved by God Himself when
He brought us back into right relationship with Himself. Romans 5:11 says “And not
only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom
we have now received the reconciliation.”
This theme is explained by Paul in his second letter to the Corinthian church.
“And all things are of God Who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and
has given to us the ministry of reconciliation, that is that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and
has committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18–19).
Having developed several of the results of the work of Christ, Paul now turns to specifics
to show just how Christ accomplished in Himself the work which enables a believer to
enter a joyful relationship with God.
E. Christ’s obedience delivers us from condemnation in Adam (5:12–21)
1. The plight of all mankind in Adam (512–14)
a. In Adam all received the sin nature and the death it brings (5:12)
One of the painful facts of life which the unsaved man must face is the fact that the entire
human race which has been generated by our father Adam has been stained with that
original rebellion of Adam in the garden. Most people never realize that all “mankind”
was created when Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground and was breathed into
life to become a living soul “And the Eternal Lord God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul” (Gen.2:7). God had said: “Let us make mankind in our image…. Male and
female He created them” (Gen.1:26). * But not only was Eve was in Adam at the time
of his creation; all of those who are Adam’s descendants were in Adam at that time. The
Hebrew word “Adam” is used with the article seven times in chapter six to refer to all
mankind, the entire human race as it existed at that time.
That is to say that the entire human race was in the garden in our ancestor Adam. That is
the meaning of Genesis 1:26. “Then God said: ‘Let us make mankind in Our image,
according to Our likeness; Let them have dominion over the fish in the sea, over the
birds of the air … ” * At that time when Adam was in the garden, we were Adam just as
the child which has not yet been conceived is yet in the loins of its father today. It is
crucial to understand that the one act of Adam stained the entire human race only because
we were in Adam at that time. The rebellion which was in our father there in the garden
has been present in every offspring that ever has been born since then. That is what Paul
is referring to in Romans 5:12 when he says:
“Wherefore, just as by one man the sin nature entered into the world and through
the sin nature, the death [which every man dies] even so death spread through to all
men because all sinned” [in Adam’s or “mankind’s” single act]. *
I have supplied the word “nature” where the Greek article occurs with the word
harmartia, “sin” but not without justification. Our English translations ignore the fact
that Paul very carefully distinguishes between acts of sin and the nature within man
which produces those acts. He does so in this great passage explaining the internal enemy
of the believer, his sin nature, by adding the Greek article to the word hamartia wherever
it is found in the singular in Romans 5:12–8:4. This forgotten contribution of the Greek
language was recognized by Wuest more than a generation ago. This passage contains
Paul’s careful explanation of why it is impossible for a believer to be victorious over acts
of sin in his life by means of his own strength. It is a section which sets the stage for
Paul’s invaluable explanation of the precious provision which God has made to enable
the believer to live victoriously above the demands of his old sin nature which he gained
in the sin in the garden. That discussion is a major focus of Romans 8. In Romans 5:12–
8:4, every time that Paul uses the word “sin” in the singular with the article, it clearly
refers to the nature which indwells us. Thereby he gives the explanation of the cause for
the agony of his own soul as he wrestled with acts of sin in his life as a believer after he
died to the Mosaic law through his death in Christ on the cross.
Paul strikes a death blow at the grievous and dreadfully misleading error of those who
teach that a believer no longer has a sin nature. Paul plainly identifies the major source of
sin in his own life as well as in ours as “… The sin nature which is indwelling me.” *
(7:17 and 20). He calls this “… the sin nature which is existing in my members” *
(7:23). He carefully uses the article with the word for “sin,” he hamartia, in the singular
to distinguish that he is talking about that old nature.
To deny this fact is to leave the believer without a grasp of the crucial fact that he has
three great, mortal enemies, the world, the flesh (which includes the sin nature) and the
Devil. It is a position which strongly tends to leave the believer helpless before these
enemies of his spiritual life and service. Failing to recognize the existence and power of
even one of these three enemies can only result in a defeated life.
Paul uses the definite article twice here in 5:12 to explain how it is that every person in
mankind has this nature which generates our acts of sin and rebellion against God since it
indwells us. He does this a total of 30 times from Romans 5:12 through 8:3. Where Paul
is discussing acts of sin he does not use the article. The expositor readily can recognize
the only exception where the noun is in the plural (4:7) for there the plural noun and
article clearly are referring to acts of sin in a man’s life. Where he refers to the sin nature,
which came under judgment which fell on the whole human race when we yet were in the
loins of Adam, he uses the article to distinguish his meaning. The sin nature entered the
world there in the garden in the act of the human race as it existed in that one man. The
believer who doubts this presentation needs to consider that physical death of all between
Adam and Moses clearly is not linked to these individual’s personal sins but is linked to
the fact that each had a sin nature (Rom.5:13–14). And precisely the same factor causes a
believer’s physical body to die today. Every man, believer or unbeliever, has a sin nature
which produces death in him. Enoch is a special case (Heb. 11:5). Perhaps the reader who
is confused about this crucial issue will find it helpful to see all of these references to the
sin nature brought together in a single narrative. Paul says these things about the fact that
each of us has a sin nature.
“Therefore, even as through one man the sin nature entered into the world [of
mankind], and the death [i.e. the physical death which directly is the result of man’s sin
nature. cf. Rom.8:2 where the sin nature and the death which it brings also are mentioned,
again both having the article.] through the sin nature, even so death passed through
unto all men in as much as all sinned” [an aorist, indicating a punctiliar, single act in
Adam in the disobedience in the garden] (5:12).
“Moreover the [Mosaic] law entered in order that the transgressions might abound.
And where the sin nature abounded, grace abounded much more, in order that,
even as the sin nature reigned as king in the death [which the sin nature brings], even
so the grace [which God provided to Old Testament believers] reigned as king through
righteousness [as explained in Romans 3:25] unto life eternal through Jesus the
Messiah, our Lord” (5:20–21).
“What shall we therefore say? Shall we continue to remain in the sin nature [under
the rule of the sin nature] in order that the grace [previously mentioned in 5:21]
might abound? Absolutely not! How shall we who died with reference to the sin
nature continue to live any longer in it” [i.e., under its control]? (6:1–2).
“Knowing this, that our old man also was crucified [in the death Christ Jesus died for
us] in order that the body of the sin nature might be rendered ineffective in order
that we no longer should be slaves of the sin nature. The reason is that the one
having died has been set free from the sin nature [i.e., from its rule over the believer
as his king] (6:6–7). The reason is that the death that He [the Messiah] died, He died
with reference to the sin nature [which we all have] once for all. But the life which He
[the Messiah] lives, He continues to live with reference to God. Even so all of you
reckon it on your accounts that you all on the one hand are dead with reference to
the sin nature but living with reference to God in [the Messiah,] Christ Jesus our
Lord. Stop continuing to allow the [your] sin nature to rule as king in your mortal
bodies with the result that you should obey it in its lusts. Neither should you
continue to present your members to the sin nature as tools of wickedness, but on
the contrary, once for all present yourselves to God as those who are living out from
among the dead ones and your members as instruments of righteousness to God”
(6:10–13).
“Thanks be to God that [even though] all of you were bond slaves of the sin nature,
you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine unto which you were delivered.
And having been freed [as a slave] from the sin nature, all of you became bond
slaves of righteousness” (6:17–18).
“For when you were bondservants of the sin nature, you were all free from [having
any] righteousness (6:20).
“But now, having been set free from [the rule over you as king] of the sin nature and
having become bondservants to God, all of you have your fruit unto holiness and the
end, life eternal. The reason is that the wages which the sin nature gives is death, but
the gracious gift of God is life eternal in [the Messiah], Christ Jesus our [Eternal]
Lord” (6:22–23).
What shall we therefore say? Is the [Mosaic] law sin? Absolutely not! But on the
contrary, I was not knowing by experience the sin nature except through law. For I
would not have known [that my heart harbored] covetousness except the law said ‘You
shall not covet.’ But the sin nature, taking an occasion through the commandment,
brought about in me every kind of evil desire. For apart from the [Mosaic] law sin
[as an act] was dead. Now I was living without the law then [after coming to Christ],
but with the coming of the commandment, the sin nature revived and I died [i.e. it
pointed me out as worthy of death]. And the commandment, which was [to bring] life,
this was unto death. The reason was that the sin nature, finding an occasion through
the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me” [figuratively](7:7–11)
“… The sin nature, in order that it might appear to be sinful, through that good
thing [the Mosaic law] was working death in me in order that through the
commandment the sin nature might come to be [to my understanding] exceedingly
sinful. For we know intuitively that the law is spiritual but I am carnal, having been
sold under the sin nature” (7:13–14).
“And now it is no longer I [the new man and nature] who am working this out, but on
the contrary, it is the sin nature which is indwelling me” (7:17).
“Now if I work out and do that which I [the new man and new nature] do not want to
do, it is not I [the new man and the new nature] who am working out this thing but the
sin nature which is indwelling me” (7:20).
“Now I recognize another principle in my members continually warring against the
law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of the sin nature which is
existing in my members” (7:23). “Therefore there now is no condemnation [by the
Mosaic law of which alone Paul has been speaking] to those who are in the Messiah,
Christ Jesus, [that is,] to those who are not continually walking according to [the
desires of their] flesh but on the contrary continually are walking according to the
[Holy] Spirit. The reason is that the law of the [Holy] Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
freed me from the law of the sin nature and the death [which it inevitably brings]….
 His [God’s] Son condemned the sin nature in the flesh in order that the righteous
standard of the [Mosaic] law might be fulfilled in us, that is in those [believers] who
are not continuing to walk according to [the] flesh but on the contrary according to
the [Holy] Spirit” * (8:1–4).
It should be obvious that the presence in every believer of a wicked sin nature is a
dominant theme of Paul’s discussion which is preparing the new believer to realize his
helplessness of himself and in his own strength. Some have mocked the idea that a
believer has two equally powerful natures residing within him and warring against each
other. That is a concept which utterly is foreign to Scriptural teaching about the
relationship if the two natures in the believer. Always it is clear that the old nature is far
more powerful than the new nature of the believer. With that devastating truth the
Scriptures also teach that the new nature of the believer never can overcome of himself
and of his own strength his old nature.
But that is precisely the point of Romans 8. The believer does not have to fight this battle
in his own strength. There is One Who has been give to the believer Who will enable the
believer to gain victory over his old sin nature when that believer depends upon and
walks in the strength which is given to him by this member of the Godhead. And that
member of the Godhead Who indwells every believer and is willing and ready to
empower the believer to overcome his old nature and to enable the believer to accomplish
that walk is the Holy Spirit. The very same power which raised Jesus from the dead
dwells in every believer and, as Romans 8:11 says, is able to develop the resurrection life
in that believer in his mortal body. Paul has given a powerful explanation of the problem
that every believer faces of living a spiritual life which is well pleasing to God. Only by
refusing to accept or by completely misunderstanding Paul’s explanation, or by
deliberately setting one’s own word above the Word of God, can one hold that the
believer no longer has his old sin nature within him as one of his three mortal enemies. I
now turn to examine this material which I have quoted above in greater detail.
b. In Adam all participated in Adam and sinned because we were Adam (5:12c)
Romans 5:12 also says that every human being on the face of the earth is born with that
sin nature which he received while in Adam. As a result, physical death is the end of the
physical life of every human being. That distinction which Paul carefully makes
throughout this key section of Romans to distinguish between acts of sin and the nature
which produces those acts of sin has been lost in every English translation of which I
know. I follow the original text closely in this translation.
“Therefore, even as through one man the sin nature entered into the world [of
mankind], and the [resulting] death through the sin nature, even so death passed
through unto all men in as much as all sinned” [an aorist, indicating a punctiliar,
single act in Adam in the disobedience in the garden] (5:12).
In the conclusion of Romans 5:12 there is another reference to our sin in Adam. This
usually is obscured by translations and by commentaries which erroneously reject the
truth stated here that the human race sinned in Adam in the garden. These make the
phrase “… for all sinned” * [an aorist, point action verb] appear to refer to our
individual acts of sin by translating it “… for all have sinned” as if the verb were a
perfect tense. In this way the punctilliar verb no longer speaks of the single act in the
garden but erroneously is made to speak of the multitudes of sinful acts of which each
mature sinner is guilty. The tense chosen by Paul clearly shows that this is not what he
intended for the reader to understand. The same error can be found in Romans 3:23 which
reads in translations, “For all have sinned…. ” It should read: “For all sinned and are
falling short of the glory of God.” *
The fact that I was in the loins of Adam, that I indeed was Adam, helps me to understand
why from birth I have been a sinner in my conduct. The fact that Romans teaches without
question that I still, even after receiving my salvation, have “… the sin nature
indwelling me,” helps me to understand how easily I am led into disobedience and into
sin even today. It also gives understanding of the reason why so many Christian leaders
succumb to a life of sin.
David recognized this universal bent toward a life of sin and rebellion when he was
confessing his sin with Bathsheba. He says: “Behold, I was shaped in iniquity and in
sin did my mother conceive me” (Psa. 51:5). David was not casting an aspersion on his
mother’s purity in this statement. Rather he is speaking of the fact that, even while his
body was being formed in the womb of his mother, iniquity already was present, inherent
in him because of his connection with his ancestor, the fountainhead of the race. He is
acknowledging that from the time of his conception sin was an inevitable presence in his
life, a presence which led to the sin which he was confessing before the Lord in Psalm
51. And we can understand, through Paul’s carefully guarded exposing of the sin nature
in the believer’s life precisely why David fell into his great sin. He, like each one of us,
was born with the sin nature which had been part of mankind since all mankind in Adam
rebelled in the garden.
In Paul’s writings this problem of the source of sin which is found in every human being
is referred to by the expressions “the sin nature” and “the flesh.” The expression, “the
sin nature,” usually escapes our attention when we are reading in Romans for translators
do not recognize that in Romans 5:12–8:4 As I have indicated, Paul very carefully
distinguishes between sin as an act by omitting the article whereas when he refers to the
nature which generates the acts of sin he uses the article as here in Romans 5:12 in he
hamartia.
As seen above, Paul uses this latter construction 30 times in this passage. Because the
recognition of this phenomenon is so important in showing the origin of sin in our lives, I
will repeat myself once again and list them. He hamartia is used by Paul to identify the
sin nature, the source of our sin in Romans 5:12a, 12b, 20, 21; 6:1, 2, 6, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12,
13, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23; 7:7, 8, 9, 11, 13a, 13c, 14, 17, 20, 23; 8:2 and 3. The strong
concentration of this construction must be recognized in chapters 6, 7 and 8. The reason
for this will be explained later but it relates to the fact that the sin nature has dominated
our lives since birth since in indwells every man, woman and child on earth. That even
includes believers who are instructed concerning how they may conquer their old sin
nature and begin living the kind of a resurrection life which should be expected in one
who has been raised from the dead. This is a major subject in the last half of the book.
As proof that all who lived from Adam until Moses had a sin nature, Paul now shows that
there were acts of sin in the world which were not being judged since there was no
codified law. Nevertheless the proof of the presence of the sin nature which had been
producing these acts of sin was the fact that all men died between Adam and Moses.
“For until the law sin [as individual acts] was in the world, but sin is not imputed
when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over
those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam,
who is a type of Him Who was to come” (Rom. 5:13–14). *
Apparently the only exception was Enoch whose translation from earth to heaven is noted
in Genesis 5 and Hebrews 11. Many also will include Elijah. All mankind died even
though they were not repeating the act of rebellion in which the whole human race had
participated in the loins of Adam. [Particularly note verse 14).
Because of Adam’s effect on the whole human race in his transgression Paul uses him as
“… the figure of Him that was to come” (v. 14). Paul clearly is indicating that, in some
way, there is a close parallel between Christ and Adam. In his statement there is a hint
that God would give someone who would provide the solution needed by the descendants
of Adam. And Paul at this point begins to contrast that which Adam had done and that
which His counterpart, Jesus Christ, has done. Whereas Adam had brought an offense, in
Christ a free gift was brought. Whereas Adam’s act had brought the death of many (all
mankind),
“But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense [Adam’s act]
many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man,
Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many” (5:15). *
Whereas the guilt and penalty that was brought on the whole human race had come by
means of that one act of Adam in the garden, the gift which came through that one man,
Jesus Christ, counteracted that one act and its consequences. The reason was that whereas
“… the judgment was by one [Adam] to condemnation, … the free gift [by the one
man, Messiah], is of many offenses [by mankind] unto justification” (5:16).* Whereas
that one act of Adam brought death upon the entire human race so that it reigns over
mankind, “Much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (5:17).
Notice that this is the third time of the four times that Paul has used the expression “much
more” in this passage. This is what he has said:
1. “We who had been enemies were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.
“Much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by the fact that He is living” (5:10).
*
2. How great is the contrast between that which received through Adam and that
which one may receive through Jesus Christ!
“But not as the offense [in Adam], so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of
one [Adam] many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which
is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many” (5:15).*
3. The contrast between Adam’s offense and the death which resulted now is
contrasted with the life which now is available to the one who benefits from the free gift
of the righteousness of Jesus Christ! ” For if by one man’s offense death reigned by
one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ “ (5:17).
4. The plight of man was great as a result of our sin in Adam in the garden. The fact
that all have died is evidence of the universality of this problem. And the Mosaic law had
made that plight obvious for no man was able to keep the standards of God in his own
strength.
“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered in order that the
 offense might abound [i.e., become obvious to man]. But where the sin nature
abounded, grace did much more abound” (5:19–20).
How much more we believers have received than we had in our former, unsaved state!
And how much we have to offer to the poor lost sinner who still is in that sad state! How
the grace of God has provided! What great things it can accomplish if we are faithful in
proclaiming the good news to the lost!
How great is the solution to the plight of man! How great is the free gift which Jesus
Christ has provided to all who will believe, to those “… which receive abundance of
grace and of the gift of righteousness!” (v. 17). It should be made obvious to the lost
sinner that he, now under the condemnation of sin and death can receive, through Jesus
Christ, justification of life and eternal life as a free gift! But there is even more! Whereas
“… By the offense of one [Adam], judgment came upon all mankind to
condemnation, even so by the righteousness of One [Jesus Christ], the free gift came
upon all mankind unto justification of life” (5:18).
Whereas Adam’s transgression and disobedience had brought all of his offspring into the
dreadful plight of sin, “… So by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous”
(5:18). It is obvious that Jesus Christ has made a provision that somehow man’s lack of
righteousness might by solved. Precisely how that was done in God’s court of law
without involving God in an unjust act is explained in the next step of the soul-winner.
F. Christ’s grace brings righteousness and eternal life to those who believe (5:20–21)
How great was the accomplishment of the Second Man, Christ! It is obvious that He has
totally reversed the shambles which were upon the human race as a result of that which
happened to all of us at the fountain head of the race. That created righteousness which
Adam originally had, in which mankind might have stood before God, was totally absent.
Only the grace of God, looking forward to the wonderful work of Christ, made provision
for those of Old Testament days. But that same provision, described in 3:24–26, has met
our need as well.
1. “… Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus, Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to
demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the
sins that were previously committed…. ”
2. “… To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be
just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Whereas in Old Testament
days “… The law had entered in order that the offense might abound … ,” Paul
speaks of how God’s abounding grace overcomes the dilemma of man, the abounding
power and the sinfulness of every man’s sin nature. In other words sin had to be made
obvious to the sinner and made known to him in order that he might know that he did
have a sin nature which was generating the acts of sin. God in grace reversed that
problem in His boundless grace.
“But where the sin nature abounded, grace did much more abound, that as the sin
nature had reigned as king unto death, even so might grace reign as king through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ” (5:20–21).*
Just think!
In Adam death!
In Christ grace!
In Adam condemnation!
In Christ justification!
In Adam the sin nature and the death it brought reigned in everyman’s life!
In Christ the believer can receive the gift of righteousness which will reign in his life!
In Adam only offense and condemnation!
In Christ righteousness and justification unto life!
In Adam made a sinner!
In Christ made righteous!
In Adam the sin nature reigned unto death!
In Christ grace through righteousness reigns unto eternal life!
But how does one get to be “in Christ” in order to have all of these things applied to his
heavenly record? How does God accomplish the tremendous transference of our sin to
the Savior and His righteousness to the sinner? Does God simply say to the trusting
sinner, “Well, I think that I will forgive you. Somehow the fact that Christ died should
enable me to count you perfectly righteous.”? No, God’s court of law is the only court of
law which moves precisely according to perfect righteousness. God has indeed provided
the necessary step for the one who comes in faith to have his sins all transferred to the
Savior and to be paid for in His death.
Years ago I knew a man who had been a convicted criminal of one of the gangs of
Cisero, Illinois. He was not convicted by the state until after he accepted Christ as his
Savior in Marquette Manor Baptist Church, the very church in Chicago were I was
baptized by Pastor Odegard in 1945. His heart first was convicted of his sinfulness and of
his need of the Savior when he heard his little girl praying for his salvation. Surely he
also had felt a softening of his hard heart by means of the transformation of his wife after
she previously had found Christ and had broken her drug habit. The transformation of his
life when he was saved brought the conviction that he must turn himself in to the police
and confess his wrong doings. He then was sentenced to prison. But in prison he proved
to be such a remarkable model prisoner that eventually they called him into the warden’s
office and burned his records before him, releasing him to a very fruitful life of service to
His Lord.
God has provided a far more just means whereby the sentence of death under which the
sinner long stood can be counted as fully paid The prisoner can be led forth without
further record of that which had offended God. The guilty prisoner literally is raised from
the dead after the death sentence has been passed upon him “in Christ Jesus.” Yes, and
God has provided a means whereby the one who comes in faith can have the very
righteousness of the Savior transferred to him so that he has a righteous standing before
the Lord. And The fifth step of the Soulwinner is an essential step because it shows
precisely how all of this is accomplished in God’s wonderful, perfectly just court of law.
While many are confused and misrepresent this fifth step, there can be no question but
that Paul considered it to be a crucial, final step in the presentation of the gospel message
to a lost world.

CHAPTER FIVE
THE SOUL WINNER’S CRUCIAL FIFTH STEP: Explaining God’s means
of transferring our sins to Christ and His righteousness to us. (6:1–10)
It is obvious from chapter five that Christ has done something wonderful to resolve the
problem of the sin nature which mankind received in Adam, the fountain head of the
race. It was that act of rebellion in the garden which had brought the sentence of death
upon all mankind (5:12–17). It had brought judgment and condemnation to all as they
were made sinners (5:18–19). But in face of the abundance of the activities of the sin
nature which reigned over man unto death, the provision had made for “… grace to
reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:20–21). It
also is clear that this grace, the free gift that had been given to us, was given with the
expectation that we would begin to live righteous lives as the sin nature came under
judgment. That becomes the introduction to Paul’s explanation of the soul-winner’s
crucial fifth step in Chapter 6:1–10. There the Apostle will explain how the divine
transaction actually has taken place. It also becomes the transition to the sixth step of
soulwinning which introduces the unfinished work of the soul-winner after he has won a
person to Christ. That Divine transaction of which Paul will speak in chapter 6 is
precisely set forth by Paul in II Corinthians 5:21. “For He [God] has made Him
[Christ] Who knew no sin to be sin for us in order that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.”*
For many it will be difficult to recognize that Messiah, from eternity past, was designated
by the Godhead as the One who would become a substitutionary sacrifice to bear the
penalty for mankind’s sin. That truth is well presented in Psalm 40, one of David’s great
prophetic Psalms. Psalm 40 is a Psalm which is quoted and interpreted in Hebrews 10:5–
7. The quotation clearly identifies the words of verses 5–8 of the Psalm as the words of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The writer to the Hebrews says:
“Therefore, At the time of His coming into the world, He said: Sacrifice and offering
You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and
sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—in the
volume of the scroll it is written of Me—to do Your will, O God.” *
It is a remarkable fact which must be noticed by interpreters of Psalm 40 that Hebrews
10:5 actually explains the time when these words were spoken by Messiah. It says, and I
am adding to the text of verse 6 in the Psalm that which is interpreted in Hebrews: “At
the time of His coming into the world He said: ‘Sacrifice and offering You did not
desire; My two ears You have opened.’ ” * (In Hebrews this latter phrase is interpreted:
“A body You have given me” ).
The text clearly is speaking about the incarnation, that day when through the normal
channels of birth, the Savior would enter the world of humanity as a perfect human being
without divesting anything whatsoever of His Godhood. He arose from His throne and
said these words as He was heading toward his birth on earth and ultimately toward the
cross. “Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require” [i.e., These sacrifices
were an inadequate and only temporary means of dealing with mankind’s sin. Compare
Hebrews 10:2–4]. “Then I said, ‘Behold, I come [i.e. the Messiah was coming to make
provision of a perfect substitute for man’s sin, the death of a perfect, sinless human being
who would in place of and for mankind’s sin]. In the scroll of the book it is written of
me, I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.’ ” *
When reading this in the book of Hebrews one might think that this is talking about the
book of Psalms where this was first written. But when you are reading the same thing in
the Book of Psalms, where then do you look for that scroll? I think that you have to look
all of the way back into eternity to the time of the decree by the Godhead in council. Note
a reference to that great decree which encompasses all between the eternities which is
 found in Psalm 2:7. “I will declare the decree: The Eternal Lord has said unto me,
‘You are my Son. This day [that is, at the time of that declaration in eternity past when
the decree was made] I have become Your Father.’ ” And it must be recognized that the
one speaking here in Psalm 2:7 only can be the Messiah, the Son of God. He is identified
in Hebrews 1:5 as the one to whom these things were said by the Heavenly Father.

A. The prophetic background for the great transaction

Psalm 40 is remarkable, both in its scope of prophetic elements and in the places to which
the prophet David is led by the Holy Spirit to carry the readers. Now consider Psalm
40:12, only four verses away from Christ’s words which we already have considered in
the Psalm 40. He there says: “For innumerable evils have surrounded me; my
iniquities have overtaken me so that I am not able to look up; They are more than
the hairs of my head. Therefore my heart failed me.” Now you should surely know
the three statements found in the New Testament: “In Him was no sin.” “He did no
sin.” “He knew no sin.” This cannot be talking about Christ’s sin. This is talking about
our sin which He took upon Himself, which He here confesses as if they were His very
own. Indeed, they were His very own for He took all of them upon Himself as if they
were His own sins and died for them. He is referring to the sins of the whole world but
especially to the sins of those who by God were placed “in Christ Jesus” by an act of the
Godhead in His death upon the cross. Christ has taken our sins as if they were His own
and He has borne them on the cross. “My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am
not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head!” (Psa. 40:12).
Some may object that these are not the words of the Messiah at all. But the Psalm begins
with an agonizing cry which should have been translated in the present tense. It is a cry
that would be delivered from hell where the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, went in our place.
The present tense of the first verb with a strongly intensifying infinitive absolute from the
same root is followed by a series of verbs that could only be translated in the future to
accord with the fact that the Psalm contains Messiah’s own words.
“Earnestly, longingly I am waiting for the Eternal Lord; and He will incline to me
and will hear my cry. He also will bring me up out of an horrible pit, out of the miry
clay, and will set my feet upon a rock, and will establish my steps. Many will see [my
resurrection] and will fear and will trust in the Eternal Lord” (Psa. 40:1–3). *
The verb forms which open this Psalm in verse one are far more intense than they are
represented in any English translation. Indeed, I feel that they are the most intense and
agonizing expressions that can be found in the Word of God! By the context of the last
verses of the Psalm they must be interpreted as future in time and not past. And the
interpreter of the Psalm must be careful to recognize that, after Messiah’s reviewing of
His departure from heaven (40:5–8), He reviews His ministry on earth (40:9–10). Then
He returns to request the Lord’s mercies during this time when the multitude of our sins
are upon Him (40:11–12), asking now for the deliverance which would shame those evil
spirits who were mocking Him in His great time of trial and would be the cause for
rejoicing of those who would receive the salvation which had purchased for us (40:13–
16). Listen to this again, you evangelists. The Savior speaks of His coming resurrection
from Sheol and announces that His resurrection will be the basis for the many who come
to Him seeking to be saved. “Many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Eternal Lord.
Blessed is that man who makes the Eternal Lord his trust, and does not respect the proud,
 nor such as turn aside to lies!” (Psa. 40:3b–4). The Psalm closes precisely where it began
but with the Messiah now asking that His resurrection from that horrible pit where He
went for us should not be delayed (40:17). I am confident that this is a Psalm which, in its
Christological meaning, is a Psalm which the Messiah spoke out of Hell as He waited for
His resurrection. That resurrection would be the proof that the Father had accepted His
provision for mankind (Psa. 41:10–11).
Is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea an important
part of the gospel? Oh yes! As long ago as in the days of David it was prophesied that the
resurrection of the Messiah would be the factor which would cause that “Many will see it
and will fear and will trust in the Eternal Lord” (Psa. 40:3b). David wrote the words
that David’s greater Son would cry centuries later just as Peter interprets Psalm 16 and
Psalm 110 in Acts 2:25–36. He specifically says that David was not speaking about
himself but about the Lord Jesus. He quotes the words of Psalm 16 as the words of the
Messiah as He looks across death and hell in the garden, anticipating the day of His
resurrection. Of that He says:
“For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see
corruption. You will show Me the path of life; In your presence is fullness of Joy; At
Your right hand are pleasures forevermore!” (Psa. 16:10–11). *
There are eight very important factors which should speak both to a Jew and to a Gentile
concerning the certainty of the resurrection of David’s greater Son who is identified as
the Messiah, the chief character of the Psalm, in Acts 2:25–36.

1. Messiah would go to sheol or hell in His ministry of His goodness “… for the
saints who are in the earth [the Old Testament believers] and the excellent ones [I
believe that this expression alludes to the New Testament Church] in whom is all
My delight” (Psa.16:2–3).* I also conclude that Psalm 102:19–20 contain a reference to
the church in the second reason given to the Messiah for the delay of His kingdom. The
Eternal Lord says that He has looked down from heaven with concern about those
believers who already were confined [in Sheol awaiting the sin offering which could take
away their sins]. He also was concerned about providing a means “… to release those
yet appointed to death” (Psa. 102:20b). I conclude that this refers to those who would
die after Messiah’s death, burial and resurrection which is strongly alluded to in the
Psalm. The final reason for the delay of Messiah’s kingdom which is given by the Eternal
Lord is the need for the great covenant name, YHWH, “the Eternal Lord,” to have a
proper exposition and have its full meaning when the King would have gathered together
the peoples and kingdoms of the earth in the kingdom after His resurrection (Psa.
102:21–22).
1. Messiah would not stay in Sheol or hell for the Eternal Lord would not leave him there.
2. Messiah’s physical body would not decay during the time that His soul and spirit were
separated from His body in death.
3. Messiah would be resurrected out of Sheol.
4. Messiah would ascend into the Eternal Lord’s local presence after His resurrection.
5. Messiah there would have fullness of joy in the Eternal Lord’s local presence.
6. There Messiah would take His rightful place at the right hand of the Eternal Lord.
7. There Messiah would enjoy unending pleasures (as we also will when in His presence).
Psalm 40 also should prove to be very useful in Jewish evangelism. And Psalm 41 is very
much like it. I understand that the Messiah is speaking about Himself as the Psalm opens.
He is the one whom the LORD will deliver in His time of great trouble. The nature of
that time of trouble begins to unfold in verse 4 where He says: “… Lord, be merciful to
me; Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.” But as the interpreter continues to
study the Psalm it becomes very obvious that it is not His own sin of which He speaks. It
is not His sin which He is confessing. He is confessing my sin and indeed “… the sins of
the whole world” (1 Jn. 2:2). There is a very significant clue in verse 9 that this is indeed
a Psalm which ultimately must be understood to be the words of Christ. He says:
“Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up
his heel against me.” Of whom is Christ speaking in these words? (And this is a very
important question to ask in many places in the Scripture). It is Judas. In John 13:18
Christ identifies Judas as the one of whom the Psalm speaks. Christ says: “I do not
speak concerning all of you [disciples]. I know whom I have chosen but that the
Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against
Me.’ ”
In the same Psalm in the verses immediately before Psalm 41:9 you will find that there
are those who were sure that “… He will rise up no more!” (v. 8). Now listen to Christ’s
words as He asks for His resurrection. “But You, oh Eternal Lord, be merciful to me,
and raise me up, that I may repay them.” (v. 10). Ah, He died for our sins after Judas
lifted up his heel against him! Then Messiah says that His resurrection will prove that
God had accepted the redemptive work that He had finished. “By this I will know that
You are well pleased with me, because my enemy will not triumph over me” (v. 11).
Remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15. “If Jesus Christ was not raised from the
dead, then we of all men are most miserable” because that fact would prove that God
did not approve either of Christ or of what He had done. But Christ says here in Psalm
41:12 and 13,
“I know that it will not be that way.” “As for me, You will uphold me in my
integrity, and will set me before Your face forever. Blessed be the Eternal Lord God
of Israel from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen.”
You must be aware of the nature of His claim in verse 12. When Christ says that “… You
will uphold me in my integrity … ” He is maintaining his absolute spotlessness. This
word translated “integrity” is used of the sacrificial lamb used in the Passover ceremony.
“Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from
the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the
same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at
twilight” (Exo. 12:5–6).
The lamb had to be shut up for three days and three nights before Passover. It had to be
examined, scrutinized carefully so that it would be a lamb without blemish. And the One,
Who here in Psalm 41:4, has just confessed sin says “… You will uphold Me in My
spotlessness and set Me before Your face forever!” Oh, what a great God we have!
And what a wonderful Savior! This could refer to no other person in the human race but
to the one who was perfect God and perfect man!
The same truth is found so clearly for those who will not refuse to believe that great
prophecy of the Messiah’s death, burial and resurrection in Isaiah 53:1–12.
“Who would have believed the report that we heard? [Note Rom. 10:14–18 where the
phrase is used of Israel’s hearing of the report of the gospel but not believing]. And to
whom was the arm of the Eternal Lord [i.e., the Messiah] revealed? For He [the
Messiah] grew up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He
[the Messiah] had no form or comeliness; and when we saw Him, there was no
beauty that we should desire Him. He [the Messiah] was despised and rejected by
men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He [the Messiah]
has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted. But He [the Messiah] was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace
was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. All we like sheep have gone
astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Eternal Lord has laid
on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened
not His mouth; He [the Messiah] was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep
before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison
and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He [the Messiah] was
cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people [Israel] He
was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—But with the rich at His
death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it
pleased the Eternal Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make
His [Messiah’s] soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His
days, and the pleasure of the Eternal Lord will prosper in His [Messiah’s] hand. He
shall see the labor of His soul and be satisfied. By His knowledge My [God’s]
righteous Servant [Messiah] will justify many, for He has borne their iniquities.
Therefore I [God] will divide Him [the Messiah] a portion with the great, and He [the
Messiah] will divide the spoil with the strong, because He [the Messiah] poured out
His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors. And He bore the
sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.” *
How powerfully the Old Testament sets forth the fact that the Messiah, when He would
come to earth, would become a substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of the many! And
how clearly Jesus who is called Christ, the Messiah, fulfilled to the minutest detail those
prophecies concerning the fact that He would bear our sins.
Now there clearly are two aspects to this work which Christ did.
1. In the first place God made Christ to be sin for us.
2. In the second place (and the goal of the first aspect) God worked out a means
whereby we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. Both of these
achievements are accomplished in and explained by the final phrase, “in Him,” for that is
borne out in many important passages of Scripture. By a positioning of the one who
believes “in Christ Jesus,” as the phrase often is presented in Paul’s writings, the sinless
One was made sin for us. In the same way, that positioning of the believer “in Him”
enables us to “… be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
The precise means by which this divine transaction would be accomplished will not be
revealed by Paul until he leads us into the exquisite revelation of Chapter 6:1–10. Surely
such a transaction must bring great responsibilities on the person who has believed in
Christ and has had this great Divine transaction take place on him! Indeed that is so, and
 it is the subject which introduces chapter 6. One thing is clear. Somehow the completion
of this great, twofold transaction requires that we be placed “in Christ Jesus.” One
cannot read the Epistles of Paul without meeting that phrase repeatedly. One may find
“in Him,” “in the Beloved,” “in Christ,” or “in Christ Jesus.” Now not every time that
you meet the phrase “in Christ Jesus” or its equivalent is it a reference to this position
which somehow will resolve our sin problem. For example you will read of believing in
Christ. But that is obviously not this important use of the phrase which occurs upwards of
100 times in Paul’s writings. But a careful examination of the context of the phrase will
soon enable you to recognize these. This is a very important concept. It is time now to
turn to Romans 6:1–10 to see how a man is placed “in Christ Jesus” and something of
what that accomplishes for the sinner.

B. Our obligation as believers to live above bondage to the sin nature (6:1–2)
Chapter 6 begins then, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in the sin nature
that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we that are dead to the sin nature
live any longer therein?” (6:1–2). This remarkable challenge both looks back at the
achievements of Christ which are described in chapter 5 and looks forward to the theme
of the rest of the book, that which is expected of us because of our union with Christ in
His death, burial and resurrection. We who have the privilege of having “… grace reign
as king through righteousness” in our lives unto eternal life, shall we continue to allow
our sin nature to rule over our lives and dominate our earthly activities? Shall we allow
our sin nature to reign as king over us now that we are believers? “Certainly not!” Paul
uses the strongest possible negative in the Greek language to express his horror at the
very idea that, by continuing to allow the sin nature to dominate our lives, we would
bring honor to the Lord by displaying His wonderful grace more often. But he also says
something else which should puzzle the believer and cause him to research the meaning
of Paul’s statement, “How shall we that are dead to the sin nature live any longer
therein?”
What can Paul possibly mean? How is it that “… we are dead to the sin nature?” It is
regrettable that the doctrines which are taught to many believers in Pentecostal churches
makes it impossible for them to answer that question accurately. And yet the answer to
that question lies in the following verses.
Notice that, whereas Paul has spoken of the terrible consequence of Adam’s sin in our
lives today and of the remarkable deliverance of these consequences by the death of
Christ in our place, he now is turning to initiate a totally new theme which later will
dominate the second great section of the book of Romans. He begins his transition to this
new theme by showing that what Christ has done for us obligates the believer to begin
living on a wholly new plane of life. He displays a wonderful concern lest his teaching up
to this point might be misunderstood and some believers might foolishly think that, by
giving the Lord many opportunities to forgive their sins, they would be helping Him to
display His grace! Paul immediately turns to explain the answer to the question, “How
shall we that are dead to the sin nature live any longer therein?” I can only ask:
“What is this? How did I die with reference to my old sin nature?” So Paul’s explanation
immediately follows.
C. The reason for that obligation: The transfer of our sins to Christ and of Christ’s
death to us as believers through Spirit baptism (6:3–10)
Paul promptly gives the correct answer to that question, “How shall we that are dead to
the sin nature live any longer therein?” He shows us that such a course of action as a
believer is wholly unreasonable. The verse utterly contradicts the misrepresentation of
many who say that the doctrine of eternal security simply gives license to the believer to
live as he pleases. To live in such a way ignores a great ministry which has been
performed upon every believer at the moment of salvation. Paul asks of us: “Do you not
know that so many of us [and we should note the limiting factor there for he does
not refer to everyone] as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into the
death of Him”? (6:3). This work which caused us to be “… baptized into Christ Jesus”
doesn’t extend to the whole world to include the unsaved, even though Christ’s death
according to I John 2:2 was for the sins of the whole world. It is only speaking of a
certain group of people who have been “… baptized into Christ Jesus.” It speaks only
of those who have been “baptized into the death of Him.” * There is an article of
previous reference here which refers back to the death which Christ died which Paul has
just mentioned. The article of previous reference tells the reader that the speaker or writer
is indicating that he is speaking again about something which already has been
mentioned.
Pierson says of Romans 6, “In this sixth chapter of Romans seven significant statements
are noticeable, and upon them hangs the whole argument and turns:”
1. Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; that is, He was
divinely quickened or made alive, so that His resurrection was a miracle.
2. We, as believers, are planted together with Him in the likeness of His
resurrection; that is, we share in the very power of God which raised Him from the dead.
3. Our old man is crucified with Him; that, the former sinful nature is judicially
regarded as crucified, dead, buried, and left in the tomb of Christ …
4. That the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin;
that is, the power of sin as our master is practically [i.e. positionally] broken, and we are
released.
5. We believe that we shall also live with Him. Surely, we are not to refer this only
to our final resurrection, His resurrection, onward, forevermore, our life is one with His.
6. Death has no more dominion over Him, and so we in Him are delivered from all
that dominion of sin which implied in death as its judicial penalty. Compare verse 14.
7. In that He lives, He lives unto God; and to us also God is to be the source,
channel, and goal of our new life, and so we are to manifest our unity with Him.
This teaching is so wonderful that it would be incredible were it not found in the inspired
Scripture, and thus sealed with the authority of the Divine Teacher. It manifestly is a
revelation from God, for it never would have entered into the heart of any mere man,
untaught of God, to conceive it.
Paul now is explaining precisely how God’s court of law has resolved the problem. We
have been baptized into Jesus Christ and therefore are counted to have been baptized into
His death. “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into His death” (6:3). And that explanation resolves another
problem of interpretation in this wonderful book of Romans. Have you noticed that the
Holy Spirit has been mentioned only once this far in the book of Romans? Paul has
alluded to the ministry of the Holy Spirit spreading abroad God’s love (if a subjective
genitive) or developing our love for God (if an objective genitive) in the lives of believers
in Romans 5:5. “And hope does not make one ashamed because the love of [or “for”]
God has been abundantly poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which was
given unto us.”
There is only one baptism which unites us with Christ in His person and work. It is
amazing and utterly regrettable that those who talk most about the baptism of the Holy
Spirit actually know least about what actually is accomplished by this crucial work of
salvation. And it is but one of four great ministries of the Holy Spirit which inescapably
must take place the moment that one believes.
1. The Holy Spirit is the member of the Godhead who performs the work of
regeneration or our being born again. These are the words of the Lord Jesus Himself.
“Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of
God…. Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ’You must be
born again’” (Jn.3:3, 5–7).
2. A second ministry by the Holy Spirit which absolutely is required at the moment
that one believes in Christ is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The believer is joined
together with all other believers into a holy shrine or inner sanctuary, a Holy Place where
the Holy Spirit dwells.
“Don’t all of you know that all of you are a holy temple of God and that the Spirit of
God dwells in all of you? If anyone corrupts the holy temple of God, God will
corrupt this person. For all of you are the holy temple of God Who is in you all” (1
Cor.3:16–17).*
At the moment that one believes, he or she becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit
collectively and individually as the Holy Spirit enters into believers so that the believers
individually and collectively become a holy, inner sanctuary.
“Or do all of you not know that the body [singular] of each one of you is a holy
temple of the Holy Spirit who is in all of you, which all of you have from God, and
you all do not belong to yourselves, for all of you have been bought with a price.
Therefore all of you glorify God in your bodies” (1 Cor. 6:19–20). *
I deliberately have emphasized the plural pronouns which are found in this passage. It is
difficult to be certain whether the passage is addressing all believers and thus referring to
the fact that together we become a holy dwelling place of the Holy Spirit as does I
Corinthians 3:16–17. Or is there a particular emphasis upon the individuals who make up
the temple which is His body? The use of the singular “the body” usually is interpreted as
indicating that each believer individually is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Surely that is the
intent of Romans 8:9–11.
“But you all are not ‘in flesh’ but on the contrary ‘in Spirit’ since the Spirit of God
indwells in all of you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit from Christ
[understanding the fixed form Christos to be in the ablative or source case] , this one
does not belong to Him. But if [or” since “] Christ is in you all, on the one hand the
body [i.e. your individual body] is dead because of sin but on the other hand the [i.e.,”
your “individual] spirit is alive because of righteousness. And since the Spirit of the
One having raised Jesus out of the dead ones is dwelling in you all, the One having
raised Christ Jesus out of the dead ones also will make alive the mortal bodies of all
of you through His Spirit Who is indwelling you all.” *
I want to assure you that though I appear to be speaking “Missourian” I do so here only to
point out the plural pronouns which are in the original Greek text. But the plurals here
appear only to be indicating that it is true of every believer that he has the Holy Spirit.
The last verse strongly indicates that the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in each of
the believers was able to supply resurrection power to the believer in this life. As a result
the believer would be able to fulfill the requirement that we should live the resurrection
life which so strongly is laid upon us earlier in chapter six. There in verses 11–13 Paul
demands that we recognize that we have been resurrected from the dead positionally in
Christ and that we should begin living in the light of that.
“So also all of you count it on your books that you yourselves on the one hand are
dead to the sin nature but on the other hand are living to God in Christ Jesus. Stop
allowing the sin nature to reign as king in the mortal body which each of you
possesses so that you should obey its lusts. Stop continuing to present your members
to be instruments of unrighteousness to the sin nature, but on the contrary present
yourselves once for all to God even as being alive out from the dead ones and all of
you present once for all your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” *
3. The third universal ministry of the Holy Spirit is one that is mentioned only three
times. It is the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit which acts as the guarantee, the down
payment, assuring that what God has sealed, that is, the believer, is not lost. Discussion of
this important universal ministry of the Holy Spirit is found in these three key passages.
“In Him you also trusted, on hearing the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation;
in Whom also, on believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, Who is
the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession,
to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:13–14).
It is crucial that the interpreter recognize that the underlined verbs represent simultaneous
participles in the Greek text. There is no passage of time between the point of action
indicated by these aorist participles and their main verbs. The sealing of the Holy Spirit
occurs at the moment that one hears, understands and believes the gospel. There is no
believer who is not “in Christ Jesus” and who has not been sealed in Christ Jesus by the
indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. The sealing of the Holy Spirit indicates that the
Holy Spirit has been given the responsibility by God of being the seal, the guarantee that
the believer, the possession of God which has been purchased by the Savior in His death,
burial and resurrection will be delivered safely to its eternal destiny.
The second text which speaks of the sealing of the Holy Spirit is Ephesians 4:30. “And
stop grieving the Holy Spirit of God by Whom you were sealed for the day of
redemption.” The present imperative indicates that the action already is going on and is
to be stopped. It also indicates that the sealing work of the Holy Spirit clearly is not
interrupted when the believer falls into sin. He is grieved. It further indicates that the
Holy Spirit takes full responsibility for delivering the true believer to the day of the
redemption of his body. Compare Romans 8:23. “Not only that, but we also who have
the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly
waiting for the adult Son placing [at the time of] the redemption of our body.” *
The third passage which speaks of this third universal ministry of the Holy Spirit is 2
Corinthians 1:21–22. “Now He Who establishes us with you in Christ and has
anointed us is God, Who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a
guarantee.” Here again the work of the Holy Spirit in guaranteeing our safe conduct is a
crucial part of the discussion. Many have rejected this work of the Holy Spirit in their
theology because of what they have seen in the lives of professing believers. It must be
realized that there are two possible explanations when one sees a professing believer in
gross sin. He may be only a professing and not a possessing believer, never having really
understood the gospel or having accepted a gospel which is under Paul’s anathema (Gal.
1:8) because it either is incomplete or has added to it man’s requirements beyond the
actual gospel message. Or the professing believer actually may be a true believer who has
fully understood the gospel who is grieving the Holy Spirit by his conduct. We who
observe are required by John to pray for a brother who is being defeated by one of his
enemies.
“If anyone sees his brother sinning [any] sin which does not lead to death, he will
ask, and He [God] will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. I
do not say that he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is
[are different kinds of acts of] sin not leading to death” (1 Jn.5:16–17).
Romans 8:13 directly speaks of the danger which a believer faces when he persists in
walking according to the flesh, refusing to allow the Holy Spirit to direct his life and to
help him overcome his enemy, the flesh.
“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
For if you continue to live according to the flesh, you are about to die; but if by the
Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
But there is an unanswered question left by these statements in 1 Corinthians 3 and 6
concerning all believers together being a holy temple unto the Lord. How is it that we
believers are joined to each other to become a holy temple for the Lord? How do we get
to be joined to Christ in such a way that we are considered to be “in Christ Jesus?” That
question introduces one of the most misunderstood parts of the ministry of the Holy Spirit
in the lives of believers today. That ministry is the fourth universal ministry of the Holy
Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Why do I insist that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a ministry which is applied
universally to every one who believes, and even beyond that, that this ministry occurs
precisely at the moment that one believes? After all, that position is totally contradictory
to a crucial part of the distinctive doctrines of the Pentecostal churches. The disagreement
lies in the fact that years ago ill taught and confused early leaders of the Pentecostal
movement misused the term “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” to describe the filling
ministry of the Holy Spirit. That error in terminology continues to trouble that movement
even today, leading to all kinds of imaginative theological errors. That misuse of the term
has been followed throughout the movement with much resulting confusion. It is so easy
to hold incorrect doctrine because a respected teacher has taught it. The word of man thus
becomes the basis for theology rather than a careful, unbiased exegesis of the Word of
God.
This latter ministry of the filling of the Holy Spirit is not one of the universal ministries
of the Holy Spirit for by no means do all believers go on in their spiritual lives to be filled
and controlled by the One Whom the Father and the Son sent into the world after the
departure of Christ to heaven to function in His present service as High Priest (Psa.
110:4, Heb. 7:24–27). The filling ministry of the Holy Spirit is the only ministry of the
Holy Spirit concerning which believers receive a command in God’s Word. That
command is found in Ephesians 5:18. “And do not be drunk with wine wherein is
wantonness, but on the contrary be being continually kept filled by the [Holy]
Spirit.” * Notice that it was and is possible for a believer to be involved in as gross a sin
as drunkenness and yet be a true believer! Nevertheless, this is not to be used as an
excuse for profligate living. It is wrong. It will receive discipline from the Holy Spirit
Who continually is working to empower the believer unto a life that will honor Christ.
“You have not resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten
the exhortation which speaks to you as sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening
of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him, for whom the
LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives’. If you endure
chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father
does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become
partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons…. Shall we not much more readily
be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live?” (Heb. 12:4–9).
Obviously the professing believer who goes on in gross sin without receiving discipline
from the Lord for his ways really is not a true believer but only an illegitimate and not a
real Son of God. Perhaps the problem he has results from the fact that he still is an
unsaved person who long ago was shortchanged. A defective gospel was presented to him
and he is deluded into thinking that he really was saved when he accepted an incomplete
or a man made gospel addition. On the other hand, he may be a true believer who is
utterly defeated by his three spiritual enemies because he never has been taught how to
walk in fellowship and under the guidance of the indwelling Holy Spirit. As a result, he
faces more and more serious judgment until the Lord chooses to take him home unless he
is properly instructed in spiritual matters by a full fledged Soulwinner who is concerned
about his life as a new believer.
I am not at all saying that a Pentecostal believer is not saved simply because he has not
been correctly taught that he was placed into Christ Jesus at the moment of the new birth
by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I am afraid that the great majority of true believers
have not understood at the moment that they were saved that their being placed in Christ
Jesus is essential to their salvation. They do not realize that this is the only way that God
can count them as having paid for their sins in the death of Christ on the cross is for Him
to be able to reckon that they were “in Christ Jesus” when He was crucified. They do
not realize that the only possible way that God could count them to be as righteous as He
is so that they can enter into His presence without judgment is for them to be placed in
Christ Jesus at the new birth. And that is precisely what the Holy Spirit does for each one
who truly understands the gospel and believes. As a result of the Pentecostal’s confusion
of terminology, not realizing when speaking of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, he actually
is thinking of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Therefore the Pentecostal errantly seeks the
Baptism of the Holy Spirit as a post-salvation experience. In so doing, he contradicts that
which the Bible really teaches about the timing of that event and about the results of that
event. It is an error like the mistake of assuming that the thunder caused the lightening
bolt. It is the error of ignoring the explicit teaching of the Word of God. It is impossible
to conceive of a believer who has not been placed “in Christ Jesus” at the moment of the
new birth for “In Him—
1. we have redemption through His blood,
 2. the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace … ” (Eph.1:7).
Can one truly be a born again believer if he has not been redeemed? Or can he really be
saved if he has not received the forgiveness of sins? Certainly not! But, thanks be to God,
when he really accepted the finished work of the resurrected God Man in his place and
for his sins, The Holy Spirit performed His fourth universal ministry which inescapably
must be performed upon every new believer and immediately placed that believer “in
Christ Jesus” so that he might have “… redemption through His blood, the
forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”
The significance of this great act which is performed on every one who comes to Christ
lies in a more careful examination of that which the Scriptures teach really happens when
one is baptized by the Holy Spirit. Surely I Corinthians 12:12–27 is the key passage on
the subject, but there are scores of other passages which also cast light upon precisely
what happens when one is baptized by the Holy Spirit. The key passage says:
“For even as the [human] body is one and has many members, and all of the
members of the [human] body, being many, are one body, even so also is the Christ.
For it is indeed true that by means of one Spirit we [believers] all were [an point
action aorist] baptized into one body, whether [we were] Jews or Greeks, whether
[we were] slaves or free men, and we all were given to drink by means of one Spirit”
*
Paul continues to compare the physical, human body with that body of Christ into which
the Holy Spirit already has baptized all who truly are believers. He shows our
responsibility as members of the body of Christ into which we were baptized by the Holy
Spirit to minister to one another. He establishes the pattern in that, as a result of the
baptism of the Holy Spirit, we are to meet each other’s needs after the same manner in
which the parts of the human body minister to the needs of all other parts of the body.
Then in verse 27 Paul explains the object of his metaphor. “And you all are body of
Christ and individually [part by part] are members.” *
What then does this say concerning the baptism of the Holy Spirit? It reveals that this is
the very ministry of the Holy Spirit which unites us with Christ in order that we may be
counted to have been crucified with Christ, buried with Christ and raised from the dead in
Christ Jesus (Rom.6:3–5). It says that this ministry is an essential part of our salvation.
Without the baptism of the Holy Spirit we would not even have salvation.
“Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into
death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).
Observe from verse 4 that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the basis for the requirement
that we believers who have been resurrected with Christ should begin to act like it. We
who have been identified with the resurrection of Christ through Spirit baptism should
conduct our lives just after the manner in which we would if we already had gone through
physical resurrection.
Most believers are unaware that the Upper Room Discourse, which is about one fourth of
the Gospel of John, largely is devoted to Christ’s preparation of the disciples and of those
who would be won by them for the fact that, on Christ’s departure for heaven, the Holy
Spirit would become the key member of the Trinity ministering to believers on earth.
Christ in His “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17 prays to the Father five times concerning
this crucial event which must occur at the beginning of every believer’s life in Christ
from the moment that he believes. That event is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Below is
a tabulation of the list of Christ’s requests of the Father concerning that which must
happen to every believer. It is a list of requests which can only be fulfilled through the
fourth great universal ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
1. He prays that all those given to Him by the Father might be one even as the
Father and the Son are one. “Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the
world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You
have given Me, that they may be one as We are” (Jn.17:11).
2. He extends His concern for the Apostles to include all who would believe. Again
His prayer focuses on the need that all believers should be one. And it is crucial to
recognize the error of the ecumenists who have attempted to fulfill this prayer by getting
all church members and more, saved or unsaved, into one great, worldwide, humanly
fashioned organization. The fact that Christ asks for the Father to accomplish this work of
bringing all believers into this particular unity demonstrates that the fulfillment of this
prayer could only be accomplished by a member of the Godhead and most certainly not
by any human organization. “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will
believe in Me through their word, that they all may be one even as You, Father, are
in Me and I in You … ” (Jn. 17:20–21a).
3. Christ’s prayer continues and in the same breath He expands the nature of His
prayer to show that the unity of all believers for which He is praying actually is a unity
which in some way joins all believers to the Godhead “… that they also may be one in
Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me” (Jn. 17:21b).
4. Christ reiterates this remarkable request in the very next portion of His prayer.
This remarkable request is that we believers should in some way be given a unity that is
somewhat like the unity of the Godhead Itself. “And the glory which You gave Me I
have given them, that they may be one just as We are one” (Jn. 17:22).
5. We can see that, as a result of this great prayer, all that happens to a person upon
believing is made possible through this amazing ministry of the Holy Spirit for which
Christ prayed. “I in them and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, and
that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have
loved Me” (Jn. 17:23).
How many times does Christ have to pray for all believers to have a unity in one person
of the Godhead? Only once. And yet He prays for that unity five times with a remarkable
focus on the fact that this unity would make all believers “… perfect in One!” How does
this happen? In what person are we all made perfect? What act, which only could be
performed by a member of the Godhead in response to this great prayer, could bring
about the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer? The answer is stated plainly in Galatians 3:26–
28.
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as
were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there
is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in
Christ Jesus.”
This passage absolutely is not talking about water baptism. Now it is inescapable that
someone reading this immediately will think of water baptism when reading the phrase,
“… For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” But since
when has water baptism erased ethnic background? Since when has the distinction
between male and female been erased when a believer comes up out of the baptismal
pool? Since when has water baptism placed all believers “… in Christ Jesus?” The only
possible answer is “Never!” It is physically impossible for that which a man does in
water baptism to accomplish these things.
Indeed, to hold such a position that this refers to water baptism rejects the clear testimony
of Scripture concerning the way that the High Priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus
concerning our unity is accomplished by God. And it must be remembered that Christ
prayed to the Father for a divine act to be accomplished. Only that could have
accomplished His request that the Father make all believers one in a unity which is like
the unity of the Father and the Son. Only that could have accomplished a unity which
makes all believers “ … perfect in one” (Jn.17:20–23). Water baptism should be
practiced as a testimony to the world that a person has been crucified, buried and
resurrected in Christ Jesus. It should say to other believers and to the world, “I now
intend to begin living a resurrection kind of life to show all that in Christ Jesus I have
been raised from the dead! In my death in Him my sins were all forgiven!”
Already we have considered one of the clearest statements of Scripture which answers
the question, “How do all believers become one?” It also answers the question, “How do
I get to be ‘in Christ Jesus’ so that His death positionally can be counted to be my death,
so that His burial positionally can be counted to be my burial and so that His resurrection
can be counted to be my resurrection from the dead after my sins have been paid for?”
After all, that is precisely what 2 Corinthians 5:21 indicates has happened to every
believer. It indicates that, in some wonderful way, God has made it possible for Christ to
die in our places and for our sins, having been made sin for us. But it also indicates
another absolutely important part of God’s work in making us acceptable in His presence.
“For He [God] made Him [Christ] Who knew no sin to be sin for us, in order that
we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” *
The last two words of this verse are absolutely crucial. They show that the major element
of Christ’s prayer in John 17 has been fulfilled! We who are God’s children, who have
come to Christ receiving His work on our behalf to be our own, have been placed in
Christ Jesus! It indicates that the entire Divine transaction of transferring our sins to
Christ to bear them as His own, along with making it possible for His righteousness to be
transferred to us in our positional resurrection with Him, depends upon the two words,
“… in Him.” Our position, prayed for by Christ in the upper room, is the sole basis for
this twofold work accomplished by God. And how did we who are believers get to be “…
in Him?” The answer lies in a passage which already has been considered. I repeat it for
emphasis and that its relationship to Christ’s great prayer might be recognized.
“For as the [human] body is one and has many members, but all the members of
that one body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. For by one Spirit we
were all baptized into one body —whether Jews or Gentiles, whether slaves or free
—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit…. Now you are the body of Christ
and members individually” (1 Cor. 12:12–13, 27).
Apart from the one direct reference to the Holy Spirit in the first section of Romans in
chapter 5:5, one must turn to the second section to find extensive and open, unveiled
discussion of the ministries of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. Why? The answer
lies in the fact that the first section of the book focuses upon the work of the Second
Person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ, and upon the great work which He has done to bring
about the redemption and reconciliation of man to God. While the discussion of the
ministry of the Holy Spirit in baptizing us into the body of Christ is crucial for the
Soulwinner to understand, Paul clearly avoided going into the specific details of how we
got into the body of Christ in his final step of presenting the gospel. This great truth about
the work of the Holy Spirit which actually made it possible for God to count our sins to
have been paid for on the cross is meat for the more mature believer. Likewise, this great
means by which God is able to transfer the righteousness of the Godhead in Christ to our
accounts is meant for the research of the mature believer. Paul speaks of his own careful
separation of these deeper truths from the gospel message which he preached to the lost.
He reserved deeper truths for the studies which he presented to the mature believer. This
he says in I Corinthians 2:1–2 and 6.
“And I, brethren, when I [first] came to you, did not come with excellence of speech
or wisdom declaring the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything
among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified…. However, we [do] speak
wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age nor of the
rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.”
The second section of the book of Romans is where Paul turns toward those whom he
seeks to help to be mature believers. He focuses upon the life of the reconciled believer
and the daily and continual work of the Holy Spirit. He explains that the Holy Spirit is
seeking the refashioning us into the image of Christ and into effective representatives of
the Christ here on earth. Perhaps you remember Romans 1:17 and its second great
statement concerning the work of the gospel in revealing the righteousness of God. “…
from faith to faith, as it is written, the justified one shall live by means of faith.” *
The product of the gospel, the justified believer, is to be a means of displaying the
righteousness of God!
How then could a believer possibly think that by continuing to live the old life which he
lived before salvation possibly could bring glory to God or in any way display His
righteousness? There is a remarkable little Psalm which strongly hints that the way that
we act as believers in our relationships toward each other strongly affects the way that
others are attracted to or repelled from Christ, our great High Priest. Psalm 133:1–2 says:
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It
is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even
Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments…. ”
As I see church squabbles and the rifting of Christian brothers and sisters from each other
in a total absence of unity in local churches, I often think the thoughts of the Psalmist.
Once the beautiful fragrance of the holy anointing oil (Exo. 30:22–33) spread throughout
all of the camp of Israel when Moses anointed Aaron into his ministry as high priest. In a
very unusual sense, we believers today in the Church have the wonderful privilege of
causing a similar fragrance to spread throughout all of the world when we “… dwell
together in unity.” It is as though we had poured that holy anointing oil of old upon the
head of our wonderful High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. But so often the stench of
rottenness is associated with Him rather than the fragrance of our righteous lives. We
must remember and honor the One whom we should love and should worship with such
intense desire that it affects our every relationship. He Himself summarized that which is
expected of us in Matthew 22:37–39.
“You shall love the Eternal Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of
your soul and with all of your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And
the second is like unto it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Anything less deprives Christ of something beautiful which we could have given to Him,
that is the sweet savor, the fragrance of Christ found in believer’s lives (II Cor. 2:17). But
what is it which places us under such an obligation that we should turn from allowing our
old sin natures to rule us as kings (Rom. 6:12) rather than becoming loving and devoted
servants of the One who saved us? Ah, it is our position in Christ Jesus. Now this section
is the first time that Paul has introduced the remarkable truth that colors so much of his
writings, that from the very moment that a person believes, he is united with the Savior.
A search of a little book like Ephesians will quickly reveal what Paul meant when he said
in 1 Corinthians 2:6, “However, we [do] speak wisdom among those who are
mature…. ” He further explains that statement in 1 Corinthians 2:9–13 how these things
of God’s wisdom were hidden from men like Isaiah but now are revealed to us by the
Holy Spirit. He says:
“ ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things
which God has prepared for those who know Him’ [Isa. 64:4] [in the blessings which
come to believers today now that Messiah has died and has arisen from the dead]. But
God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things,
yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the
spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except
the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit
Who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us
from God.” *
By searching through Paul’s writings to churches that he had planted, it is easy to see
how he taught his converts and how he teaches us just how important is for a believer to
have been placed in Christ Jesus. By scanning the references to this position in the little
book of Ephesians, one can assemble this remarkable statement and begin to recognize
the tremendous riches which are ours “in Christ Jesus.” I have somewhat paraphrased the
series of quotations to connect them for convenience in presentation.
“You faithful ones in Christ Jesus … ”(1:1),
“… you have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ” (1:3),“chosen in
Him” (1:4),
“made accepted in the Beloved” (1:6),
“in Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of the
transgressions” (1:7),
“destined to be gathered unto Him in His kingdom in Him” (1:10–11), “in Whom
you were sealed upon believing” (1:13–14),
“in Whom we now are seated in heaven so that we may always display His grace”
(2:6–7),
“in Whom we, formerly aliens, are now brought near through His blood” (2:13),
“in Whose body we, like the Jew, are reconciled through His cross” (2:16),
“in Whom we altogether are builded into a holy temple” (2:21),
“an habitation of God through the Spirit” (2:22),
“in Whom we now display the wisdom of God according to His purpose” (3:11),
“in Whom we have boldness and access” (3:12),
“in Whom we are to bring glory to God” (3:21),
“in Whom we are to grow as our head” (4:15),
“in Whom you are taught the truth that we are to put on the new man in godliness”
(4:21–25),
“in Whom you are to be strengthened [by His Spirit] to overcome your enemies”
(Eph. 6:10–16).*
It is unimaginable that a believer should somehow miss out on the glorious privilege of
being “in Christ Jesus!” Even from the book of Ephesians one can see that such a
person would not have the multitude of spiritual blessings which are heaped upon the
newly born believer! Indeed, he would not even be saved. This plainly is set forth in
Ephesians 1:7. “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of His grace.” Surely no one who has come to Christ
would dare to say that, because he has not been baptized by the Holy Spirit into Christ
Jesus, he still does not have redemption or the forgiveness of sins! Yet there are
multitudes of confused believers who maintain that the baptism of the Holy Spirit does
not come until sometime after salvation as “a second blessing.” If that were so, then there
would be a time between when one accepts Christ and that supposed “second blessing”
when the believer still would not have either redemption or the forgiveness of sins. That
is nonsense theology for two very major reasons!

1. Has not Paul just blessed God in Ephesians 1:3 because He already had given to us
every spiritual blessing? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). The so called
“second blessing” was one of the very first blessings that we received when we believed
for it was that which united us with Christ!

2. It is utterly impossible for one to receive the benefits of salvation without first having
been placed in Christ Jesus! It is time for some to revise their theology under the
guidelines of Scripture rather than under the teaching of misguided leaders.
The Epistle to the Colossians adds other amazing statements which help us to see the
necessity of the believer having been placed in Christ Jesus at the moment of his
redemption. The first of these reechoes and amplifies that which I have just said.
“The Father … has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the
kingdom of the Son of His love, in Whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:12–14). *
“You have been made complete in Him who is the head of all principality and
power, in Whom you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in
putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried
with Him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with Him through faith in the
operation of God who has raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your
sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He together with Him has made you alive,
having forgiven you all trespasses” (Col. 2:10–13). *
It is because of our position in Christ Jesus that Paul is able to say in Galatians:
 “I have been crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; it is no longer I who live but
Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son
of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). *
But how did that amazing transaction of such great profit to the one believing ever take
place? Paul explains and his explanation will not please everyone even as my explanation
of the teaching of Scripture concerning the means by which the Divine transaction takes
place will not please everyone. Nevertheless the fifth step of the Soulwinner, if we follow
the pattern set by that great, Biblical soul-winner who evangelized the Middle East and
Southern Europe, is to be followed.

1. Because we have been placed in Christ, we been crucified in Him (6:3)

The rhetorical question and Paul’s own response which introduced chapter 6 of the book
of Romans made it clear that in some way we who are believers have died to the sin
nature. He has said: “How shall we that are dead to the sin nature live any longer
therein?” (v. 2). Verse 3 contains Paul’s explanation of the means by which we are
considered by God to have died. “Do you not know that so many of us as were
baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?”

2. Because we have been placed in Christ, we have been buried with Him (6:4a)
Paul continues enumerating the remarkable results of this baptism of which he has begun
speaking. “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death …
” (6:4a). In some remarkable way we who are believers are accounted to have been
placed in Joseph of Arimathaea’s tomb when Christ’s body was lovingly laid there by his
friends just before the holy day. What is this that Paul is saying? He is saying that, in
God’s eyes, one day long ago you as a believer were wrapped in swaddling clothes and
your head laid on a little stone pillow. Your feet were thrust into a little area that had
been quickly chiseled out because the Christ was taller than Joseph for whom the tomb
had been intended. And you lay there in the limestone tomb that was carved into the
deposits of that great judgment of sin, the retreating Noahic flood long before for three
days and three nights. Yes, I believe that the limestone which had been carved out into
the garden tomb came from that source. Can you fathom that? Here you have the debris
of God’s great judgment long before in mankind’s history and you are the debris for
which God’s judgment fell on Christ on the cross! You died in Christ Jesus! You were
buried in Christ Jesus! Yes, “That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the
glory of the Father … ” even so were we raised up.
How can that be? What baptism is this of which Paul is speaking which accomplishes
such otherwise impossible things? How can it be that I, while I still am alive am
considered by God to have been raised up from the dead? It is the same baptism of which
the Apostle Peter speaks in 1 Peter 3:20–21. The passage likens our passage through the
great judgment of the cross in Christ to that passage of Noah and his family when they
went through the great judgment of the Noahic flood which fell on the early world. They
passed through that judgment because they were in a place of safety. That judgment fell
on the ark but, in their place of safety within the ark, they were protected from the death
which that judgment brought. It is so also for those who believe today. We positionally
are placed in our ark of safety, the Lord Jesus, as He bears the full judgment of God upon
the sinful human race. The judgment fell on Him and we who were “in Christ Jesus”
 passed through the judgment, passed through the punishment of death for our sins, went
to the grave and stepped forth out of that judgment alive in Christ Jesus. Peter draws this
parallel in his words:
“… The ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved
through water [the nature of that Noahic flood judgment]. There is also an antitype
which now saves us—baptism, (not the removal of the filth of the flesh [i.e. not by a
washing with water in water baptism] but the answer of a good conscience toward
God), [that is], through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:20–21). *
Yes, it is by means of the work of the Holy Spirit that we who have responded to the
invitation of the gospel, have fled from the judgment of our sin to our ark of safety “in
Christ Jesus,” that we are saved through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. When He
stepped forth from that tomb in the garden alive, evidence was given that God had
accepted His substitution in place of the judgment that should have fallen upon us as
sinners. This is the implication of Paul’s words to the Corinthian church.
“Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some
among you say that there is no resurrection from the dead? But if there is no
resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our
preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false
witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom
He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then
Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are in your
sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable. But now Christ is
risen from the dead, and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as
in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:12–22).
Only the work of the Holy Spirit could accomplish that great bonding with the Savior
which could result in the resurrection of all in Christ Jesus to life. And we have that
resurrection positionally the moment that the Holy Spirit places us “in Christ Jesus.”
And we at the same time have complete assurance of the day in the future when He will
call believers who have died forth from their graves into practical or actual resurrection.

3. Because we have been placed in Christ, were resurrected with Him (6:4b).
And now Paul goes even farther in this startling revelation of all that has happened to the
one who believes. “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death,
that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we
also should walk in newness of life” (6:4c).
What is this? Only two chapters before this Paul so emphatically has declared that no
ceremony which one man may perform upon another has any merit in gaining
righteousness. He has said that “… all sinned [a point action aorist, not a perfect
tense] and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus … ” (Rom. 3:23–24). He has rejected
the ceremony of circumcision as a ceremony which has nothing to do with one’s
salvation (4:9–12). And the same is true of water baptism by any mode, even though it
has been depended upon as the means of resolving one’s problem of sin and the means of
providing a righteous standing before God. It never accomplishes these things. It does not
 accomplish our crucifixion with Christ. It does not make it a fact that positionally we
have been buried with Christ or resurrected with Christ.
Even when one is immersed in water symbolizing Christ’s death, burial and resurrection,
that of itself does not save. This is a ceremony which is performed upon the believer who
desires to testify by this symbolic death, burial and resurrection that he as a new believer
now is going to live his life on an entirely different plane than it was lived before he was
saved. One of the greatest demonstrations of this means of testimony by a believer that I
have ever seen was given by a church in the city of Sarh in Chad, Africa. There were
about 50 converts who wanted to be baptized in order to display their intent to begin
living a godly life before their city. On the day for their baptism all met at the church
robed in a long white garment. They went singing through the dusty streets of Sarh while
they walked over a mile to the river where they would be baptized. How wonderfully
they sang as they marched to the river! After their baptism they returned by the same
route, still singing with great joy as a testimony to the Muslims and pagans of the city.
But was this baptism able to place these believers “in Christ Jesus?” No! No ceremony
performed by man upon man can possibly accomplish this which must be an act of a
member of the Godhead. The constant emphasis of Paul in chapters 3–5 has been that
salvation is by faith and by faith alone. Water baptism does not have any part whatsoever
in achieving a person’s salvation. That is a work of God alone. And that work already has
been done upon the one who is a believer or he would not even be saved.

D. A review for the last time: Is this water baptism or Spirit baptism? What does this
baptism accomplish?
Surely it is obvious now that it is the baptism which is performed by the Holy Spirit of
which Paul is speaking. It is that which places us in Jesus Christ, transferring our sin and
guilt to the perfect Savior even while providing for the sinner who has come to Him in
faith a perfect standing in God’s own righteousness. After all, that is precisely what has
been accomplished by God in some way that is not fully explained in II Corinthians 5:21.
“For He [God]
1. has made Him [Christ] Who knew no sin to be sin for us….
2. in order that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
There is only one baptism which could possibly accomplish this remarkable double
transference of sin and righteousness. That is the baptism which is performed by the Holy
Spirit. That baptism is described by Paul as accomplishing this in another of his epistles.
“For as the [human] body is one and has many members, and all of the members of
that one body, being many, are one body, even so also is Christ. For by one Spirit
were [an aorist or punctiliar tense] we all baptized into one body, whether we are Jews
or Gentiles, whether we are bond or free; and have all been made to drink into one
Spirit…. Now you all are body of Christ [the absence of the article in the original
strongly emphasizes the quality, emphasizing the nature of the relationship] and
members individually” (1 Cor. 12:12–13, 27).*
It is obvious from the above passage that it is the Spirit of God who unites the believer
with Christ in such a way that God looks upon the believer as one of the members of
Christ’s body. And it is clear from the context that it is this act of the Holy Spirit which
results in the distribution of spiritual gifts individually to each believer. This is the
meaning of “severally” in the KJV in I Cor. 12:11. He divides according to His own will
and not by our desire to each of the believers the different spiritual gifts as He divides
them in the local church to the individual members of the body of Christ.
A weak translation of 1 Corinthians 12:31 causes many believers to think that they can
desire and choose their spiritual gift. But that text actually says: “All of you [in the local
church] be earnestly zealous [for the use of] the [best] spiritual gifts [in your local
church].” This exhortation must be understood in the light of Paul’s listing in importance
of order most of the spiritual gifts which still were extant in the church in its fifth decade.
The same is true of 1 Corinthians 14:1 which should read: “All of you pursue love, and
all of you be zealous for [the use of] spiritual gifts, but especially that all of you [in
the church] may promote the use of prophecy [in the church].” This statement by Paul
must be understood in the light of Paul’s own clear statement in 1 Corinthians 13
Prophecy formed an important element of the worship and teaching service of the early
church before the Word of God was completed. But Paul clearly instructs the local
church that it is not to expect any of the temporary revelatory forms to continue to be
present after the Word of God was completed. He states this fact by contrasting three
revelatory gifts which were to be used with self-sacrificing love in that time in which
Paul wrote. Whereas self-sacrificing love always seeks only the best for the one to whom
it ministered and always would be present in the future, the individuals who had been
given these three temporary forms of revelation were not always thoughtful about how
their gifts were being ministered for the benefit of the rest of the church. See 1
Corinthians 14:12).
While many will seek to avoid the implications of Paul’s words in various ways, early
church history plainly bears out the fact that Paul’s words were accurate. These forms of
revelation were abolished by the Lord. He no longer used them to communicate with
mankind after the Word of God was completed at about the end of the first century a.d.
Prophecy, tongues and the gift of special knowledge no longer were present in the church
after the first century.
“Love never falls on its face. But whether there are [spiritual gifts of] prophecies,
they will become inoperative [they will be abolished]; whether there are [spiritual gifts
of] tongues, they will cease; whether there is [the spiritual gift of special] knowledge,
[all three were temporary, revelatory gifts], it will become inoperative [it will be
abolished]. For we [in 63 A.D.] know out of part [i.e. with only a partial grasp of the
yet incomplete revelation of the New Testament at that time] and we prophesy out of
part [i.e. with imperfect and incomplete knowledge and information]. But when that
element [of revelation from God, the Bible, in the neuter gender and thus not a reference
to Christ and His coming] which has reached its designed end is come, then that
which is out of part will be done away [that will be abolished].” *
The word which I have translated “they will become inoperative” [or abolished], which
describes what will happen to this form of oral revelation, actually is found four times in
these immediate verses. It is here in 1 Corinthians 13:8 twice telling what will happen to
the gifts of prophecy and special knowledge. It is used in verse 10 to show that, after the
revelation of the Word of God is completed, there absolutely will be no more use for
these temporary, oral forms of revelation which, in a limited way, met the need of God’s
people until they had the complete Word of God. Then it is used in verse 11 in Paul’s
illustration to help God’s people understand the principle of no longer using that which
was outmoded and unnecessary. Paul describes how he thought and spoke when still a
babbling babe (neepios), announcing that, having become a man, he put away and no
longer used those ways of childhood.
“When I was being a babbling babe, I used to speak as a babbling babe; I used to
think as a babbling babe; I used to reason as a babbling babe. But when I have
become as man, I have put away [no longer using] the things of the babbling babe”
(1 Cor. 13:11). *
For this very clear and thoroughly Biblical reason, one should not misunderstand the
meaning of Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians 14:1. One is wasting his or her time today
seeking to have the spiritual gift of tongues or prophecy. Those temporary, oral forms of
revelation have been put away by the Lord Himself for His Revelation is complete. Not
one of them is a sign that a believer has received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. To say so
is to go far beyond what Scripture reveals about the purpose and indications that one has
received the fourth universal ministry of the Holy Spirit.
The implication of 1 Corinthians 12:13 is that each believer in Christ Jesus, as a result of
the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit which places the one believing in the Christ, is that
we all are one body in Christ. We should be functioning for the benefit of the rest of the
body of Christ and for the Christ Himself. This is the implication of Galatians 3:28.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
It is impossible to think of a true believer who has not been united to all other believers
by being joined together in the body of Christ. That union can only be accomplished by
the work of the Holy Spirit which has been mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:13. It also is
mentioned here in Galatians 3:27. “For as many of you as have been baptized into
Christ have put on Christ.” The time when that happens to a believer is clearly set forth
by Paul in the context. In that context he is particularly emphasizing what happened when
he or one of his fellow Jews placed his faith in Jesus Christ
“… in order that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are
no longer under a schoolmaster. The reason is that you are all the sons [the Greek
word huioi] of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:24–26). *
One must follow the order which Paul sets forth here. It must be recognized that this is
not a chronological order because of the significant result of being baptizing into Christ.
It is obvious that this involves being placed in Christ Jesus in union with all other
believers and in union with Christ. Since union with Christ is required in order for one to
be in Him, and since being in Him is that which produces “… redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7), the
relationship must be logical and not chronological.
1. It accomplishes positional death to the sin nature (but not real or practical
removal of the sin nature from our lives before the redemption of our bodies (6:2).
2. It places the one is believing in Jesus Christ (6:3).
3. It thereby unites the one believing with the death of Jesus Christ (6:3).
4. Thus the one believing is counted to have been buried with Christ (6:4).
5. Moreover the one believing is counted by God to have been resurrected in Christ
when He rose from the dead (6:4b).
6. Our old man was crucified with Christ in order that the sin nature might be
annulled and in order to free us from our life as a slave to the acts of sin which it would
bring into our lives (6:6–7).
 7. It places on our account that we died in Christ to our sin nature (6:11).
8. It places on our account that we who have believed now are risen in God’s sight
and are alive through Christ (6:11).
9. As a result of the fact that Christ has been raised from the dead, we who died
with Christ will live with Him (6:8).
According to 2 Corinthians 5:17 our position in Christ makes us part of the new creation.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, (a new creation); old things have passed away;
behold, all things have become new.”* This then is a part of what happens when one
believes.

1. Faith in Christ Jesus results in one becoming a child of God (Gal. 3:24–26).
2. The putting on of Christ through being baptized into Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:27).
3. The joining of all believers together, making all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28).

It is this work of the Holy Spirit which wholly complements the finished work of the
Savior by making it possible for God to reckon Christ’s death as the death of the believer.
That is to say that when Christ died on the cross, He was bearing the sins of all mankind.
That is precisely what John says. “… He is the propitation for our sins and not for
ours only but for the sins of the whole world” (I Jn. 2:2). That is precisely what the
Savior was praying about in that great prophecy concerning Christ’s meditations in death,
Psalm 40.

“… Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve Me for

innumerable evils have compassed Me about: My iniquities [our iniquities which He
now had taken upon Himself as if He Himself were the sinner] have taken hold upon
Me so that I was not able to look up; they were more than the hairs of my head.
Therefore my heart has failed Me” (Psa. 40:11–12).
It is because God anticipated our complete union with Christ through the baptism of the
Holy Spirit that Christ was able to die on Golgotha just as if the sins for which He died
were His very own. That they were not in any way His own is explicitly taught in II
Corinthians 5:21 in the phrase “… Who knew no sin.” Elsewhere in the New Testament
one may find that “He did no sin” and “In Him was no sin.” The sin for which Christ
died was our sin. That act made it possible that God to place all who believed both in His
own family as children of God and also in Christ Jesus. It made it possible for our sins
might be laid on Christ and to His account. And one should note that Paul says in
Romans 6:6 “… that our old man was crucified with Him.” [The punctiliar aorist tense
is used here].

But that is not the whole story. This baptism also identifies us with the burial of Christ.
Paul says: “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into the death…. ” (Rom.
6:4a). The article of previous reference is indeed present in the original text and has
reference back to the death of Christ which has just been mentioned in the close of the
previous verse. The baptism of the Holy Spirit allows God to place on our accounts that
we not only have died but that we were buried in Joseph’s tomb. Those of us who have
had the privilege of visiting that tomb in the garden outside of the city wall should
remember that our visit there was only the second time that, in God’s sight, we had been
there. The point is, as God is concerned, that we who have believed in Christ fully have
paid for our sins and have lain in death for those three days and three nights with our
Savior.
Surely we have seen here the reason for first two elements of the carefully related
description of the gospel which Paul preached, which is found in I Corinthians 15:1–9.
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which
also ye received and wherein you stand; by which also you are being saved if you are
keeping in memory what I preached unto you unless you have believed without due
consideration. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received”, how that :
1. “Christ died for ou
3

3Northrup, B. E. (1997, c1996). True evangelism : Paul's presentation of the first five
steps of the soul-winner in Romans.