Living by Faith - Romans

Paul the Ambassador

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 1-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 001

Dictation Name: RR311A1

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth; seeing that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Let us pray.

For all Thy blessings and mercies our Father we thank thee. We thank Thee that day after day Thy mercies are new every morning. We praise Thee for Thy grace, the wonders of Thy creation, the glory of Thy salvation, and the certainty of Thy providential care. Give us grace so to walk day by day that we may ever cast our every care upon Thee, commit all our ways unto Thee, and rejoice that underneath all the experiences of life are Thine everlasting arms. In Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Romans, the first chapter, verses 1-7. Our subject: Paul the Ambassador. We begin now our study of the book of Romans. Romans 1:1-7, our subject: Paul the Ambassador.

“1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,

2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)

3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;

4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

5 By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:

6 Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ:

7 To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

We begin now a series of studies in Paul’s letter to the Romans. At the same time of course I shall be working on another study, the study of the book of Romans. It is not easy to write on this subject, and I must confess that I have delayed doing so for many years. I waited a great many years before I dealt with Biblical Law, even though that was for me a much simpler subject. After all, I was brought up amongst a community of people who took every word of God seriously.

All the same, because of the prevailing antinomianism, I felt that I had better wait until I had reached some maturity before challenging the present antinomian order. And so I have waited even longer before dealing with Romans. I believe that the meaning of the book of Romans has only been scratched. I do not disagree with the liberating power of the Reformation interpretation that began with Martin Luther, but it provides a starting point, not a conclusion.

The interpretations of the book of Romans over the years have been too ecclesiastical, too churchy in other words. But the book of Romans, like the whole Bible, speaks to the whole world; to man in every area of life and thought as I have said before and will go on saying for the rest of my life, it is a mistake to treat the Bible as merely a church book and a devotional book for the believer. This is God’s word to every man and to every area of life; to the church, the school, the state, to the family, to the arts and sciences and all things else. God made all things, and all things in heaven and earth are to be governed by God and His word. To limit God and His work to man’s soul and the church is blasphemous. He is God of more than your soul and mine, and our churches. This is box theology. It says that God is to be boxed in to a narrow corner of life, when He is Lord of all.

Now, in the introduction to Luther’s lecture on Romans, a contemporary scholar, Hilton C. Oswald remarked: “The one chief topic of Romans for Luther is the righteousness of God; that is, the righteousness whereby God makes sinners righteous through faith in Jesus Christ.”

Now to prepare ourselves for all that the righteousness of God means, let us remind ourselves of Girdlestones comments on its meaning. Writing almost a hundred years ago, Robert B. Girdlestone, a great Biblical scholar of the day, commented on the meaning of righteousness and I quote:

“It is unfortunate that the English language should have grafted the Latin word ‘justice’ which is used in somewhat of a forensic sense, into a vocabulary which was already possessed of the good word ‘righteousness’ as it tends to create a distinction which has no existence in scripture. This polity indeed may be viewed according to scripture in two lights. In its relative aspect it implies conformity with the line or rule of Gods law. In its absolute aspect, it is the exhibition of love to God and one’s neighbor, because love is the fulfilling of the law. But in neither of these senses does the word convey what we usually mean by justice. No distinction between the claims of justice and the claims of love is recognized in scripture. To act in opposition to the principles of love to God and one’s neighbor is to commit an injustice, because it is a departure from the course marked out by God in His law.”

Now Girdlestone was right. The words justice and righteousness are the same words. However, although he rightly said righteousness is a better term to use, in a sense since he wrote it becomes important to use the word ‘justice’. Because we have made righteousness a churchy word; but it means what goes on in the courts. What goes on in the courts is righteousness or unrighteousness. It means what goes on in your heart and in your actions, and what goes on in Washington D.C. and in Sacramento, and in the streets of our cities, and in the highways and by-ways. People forget that righteousness means justice, the justice that must totally govern all life and thought.

Now as we begin Romans we find that Paul describes himself in the first verse, as Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. And then again he says that from the Son of God we have received grace and apostleship. It is important for us to understand what Paul is saying; the word a ‘servant’ of Jesus Christ, servant is in the Greek Doulos, DOULOS. It means very literally, a slave.

So Paul says, “I am a slave of Jesus Christ, I am His property.” However, lest we see this term as one that carries, well, the connotation that it would have had in the United States prior to 1860 when you could have been a slave of John Jones, we need to realize that the term doulos or slave in those days had a somewhat different meaning. The status of a slave depended on the status of his master. So if you were the slave of an ordinary man, you were what we would think of as a slave. But if you were the slave of the emperor, a Caesar, then you were very important. You could be, if you were intelligent, comparable to what we would call a cabinet minister. You could head up a major department of the empire. You would have the right to marry very important Roman free-women of the nobility.

Now you were denied that right if you were the slave of a commoner; but actually you were better off being a cabinet minister if you were a slave than being a Senator in some respects; you had more security and more power, you were a part of the Emperors family.

Now Paul tells us that Jesus Christ whose slave He is, is king of kings, or King over kings, and Lord over Lords. So when he says: “I am a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ” he is saying: “I have become the property of Jesus Christ. So I do what He commands me to do” but he is also saying: “I have a very high status” and that comes out when he says: “called to be an apostle” and again “by whom we have received grace and apostleship”.

The best translation of apostle, the Greek word, we have just taken it literally into the English, is ambassador. Ambassador.

So, Paul says, I am a slave of Jesus Christ, that is I am a member of the household, an officer, a commissioned officer, with a status over the whole world. And I am an apostle, an ambassador, and as an ambassador I have powers; I have immunities. It is very difficult with most ambassadors in this country, especially if they come from a very powerful country, even to give them a traffic ticket. The embassy is governed by the law of their country, and they have extra-territorial status for their embassy, and immunities for their person. And this is how Paul describes himself.

Thus, Paul says, ‘I am the property, the possession of Jesus Christ; and this is my status. I belong to the household of the blessed and only potentate, the king of kings and Lord of Lords.’ In those days, slaves were usually taken captive in war and were often very important people, that they became slaves of the emperor. Paul was taken prisoner on the road to Damascus.

So Paul is the captive of Jesus Christ; his credentials are thus very great, and he tells the Romans so at the very beginning of his letter. ‘You people in Rome know what it is to be a slave of the emperor, how important it is, and to be His ambassador. I am both of those things.’

Thus there is no false humility here. Paul speaks of a great Lord whom he serves, and he is to be received with the authority of his Lord, with the same reverence as if he were Christ Himself. Our Lord said in Luke 10:16 “He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me. And he that despiseth me despiseth Him that sent me.” This is what our Lord said to His disciples.

Moreover, when Paul says these things about himself, it says: “For God is my witness” or, ‘God is my deponent, my sworn deponent. So when I speak, I speak in the authority of the king of kings, and God is my sword deponent, that what I say to you is His word.’ An apostle is an ambassador; an ambassador does not give his own opinions, he expresses the word, the will, the message of the country that sends him out.

Paul thus is an apostle inspired of God, setting down the word of the king, the infallible word of the king. The apostles therefore manifested the power of God; they could work miracles. They could communicate supernatural powers by the laying on of their hands, and they had general jurisdiction over all the churches, and when they spoke they said: “Thus saith the Lord.”

Then Paul goes on to tell us in verse 3 that his calling is by God concerning His Son, concerning His Son Jesus Christ; and he declares in verses 4-5 as well as in verse 3, a number of things that summarize very briefly the gospel. He tells us that Jesus Christ is Gods Son, a descendant of the royal Davidic line according to the flesh. So he distinguishes between two natures, on the human side he is a descendant of David, of the royal line; but the Son of God by the virgin birth. The virgin birth was known to Paul but he stresses instead here the great shattering fact of the resurrection from the dead, which attests to Christ’s deity, to Christ’s office. For he says: “He was raised according to the Spirit of holiness.”

On this Charles Hodge has commented, and he has said, and his words are very telling, as he speaks of this and of Paul’s declaration, that he has been called for obedience to the faith. The obedience of faith is that obedience which consists in faith, or of which faith is the controlling principle.

The design of the apostleship was to bring all nations so to believe in Christ the Son of God, that they should be entirely devoted to His service. All nations; to be devoted entirely to His service. We have received grace and apostleship, an ambassadorship, for obedience to the faith among all nations; or it can be translated: “To the obedience to the faith among all nations.” So the whole world is to be brought into obedience to Christ.

For Paul Gods justice is cosmic in scope.

Now the key verse of Romans which we will come to next week is that the just shall live by faith. For Paul Gods justice is cosmic in scope, and when Paul says that all nations and all men have the duty and the obligation to live in terms of Gods righteousness or justice, Paul says: “I have received a mission to all nations, to all the world.” And the Great Commission says: “Go forth and make disciples of all nations.” So it is more than saving souls; it is that, and it is bringing all things into captivity to Christ. And it begins to you, he says, to those of you who are in Rome. ‘The called of Jesus Christ.’ They belong to Christ, these believers in Rome, because He has called them. It is His sovereign choice.

As our Lord says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you, that ye should go forth and bring fruit, and that your fruit should remain. That whatsoever ye ask of the Father in my name, He may give it to you.”

Charles Hodge we have quoted on Romans 5, but it is important to know what Luther said, because his was the great commentary which opened up the Reformation. Luther says and I quote: “The righteousness of God is the cause of our salvation. This righteousness however is not that according to which God Himself is righteous as God, but that by which we are justified by Him through faith in the gospel. It is called the righteousness of God in contradistinction to man’s righteousness which comes from works. This human righteousness of works, Aristotle clearly describes in the third book of his Ethics. According to his view, righteousness follows man’s works, and is brought about by them. Gods judgement however is different. For according to it righteousness proceeds works, and good works grows out of it. We are justified, and when we are justified then we produce good works.”

Now all that Paul is saying here is the prelude to the great affirmation that we shall deal with at some length in verse 17. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written: “The just shall live by faith.”

The sad fact is that most people misread those few words. The way they read them is ‘The just shall be saved by faith.’ That is how it is always interpreted, but that is not how it reads. “The just shall live by faith.” Now that means a great deal, it covers a vast amount of ground. It means certainly that they shall be saved by faith; but that is just the starting point of living by faith. So that we miss the whole point of the book of Romans if we begin by limiting “The just shall live by faith” to mean ‘The just shall be saved by faith.’ They are, let me stress that, but in Habakkuk, in Romans, and again in Hebrews where we encounter this sentence: “The just shall live by faith” the meaning is the same. It is inclusive of the totality of our lives, of all that we are and all that we do.

The word ‘live’ is very broad, very inclusive, it takes in everything we do. This is why Paul says that whether we eat or drink, we must do all things by faith. We live by faith. The sad fact is that, over the generations, Protestants have progressively limited the meaning of this. It was a great liberating verse of the Reformation, and it has become a constricting verse because it has been limited in its meaning to the word ‘save’. And let me say again, it means that, but so much more.

It means living, it means exercising dominion, it is being governed in all our life and thought, in our eating, in our drinking, our thinking, our working by faith. But when you reduce this verse to the just shall be saved by faith, you get what you have in many churches, endless Jon 3:16 preaching; just that and nothing more.

Well, John 3:16 must be preached, but you cannot end there. If you do, what you have are believers who are, to use a good Biblical word, a Greek word which we have in English: ‘idiotis’. Perpetual babes. And that is the problem with the church, it is full of perpetual babes. And it is wonderful when a baby is a baby, but if an adult is a baby it is very sad, very tragic; and when you look at most Christians, they are babes, they are idiotis. And it is sad. And the churches have produced millions of perpetual babes who don’t understand, who’ve never gotten beyond John 3:16. It is like, as I have said before, learning the ABC’s, and spending your whole life majoring in the ABC’s, and never going on to reading. It makes nonsense of life, it makes nonsense of reading.

Now justification by faith is one of the great doctrines, it must be stressed, it is a great renewing, liberating force and fact. But when we retreat from that and its implications to live by faith, it becomes warping of the faith.

Paul in this epistle wrote as a household servant of Jesus Christ, who was also an ambassador. And ambassador of the king of creation. He wrote this letter to tell us how all of life must be governed, and how all the nations are to be brought under this government of Jesus Christ. To confine its meaning to the church is to misread the book of Romans. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, Thy word is truth, and Thy word is a liberating, powerful force. Grant oh Lord that Thy word and Thy Spirit may conquer us and rule in and through us, and over us. To the end that all nations, every area of life and thought, every place whereon we stand may be holy ground, because there Christ rules in and through us. Bless us to this purpose we beseech Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now, about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, Paul makes it clear that he was not impressive in his looks, nor in his speaking. In fact he tells the Corinthians, “Of course you are going to say,” because he was laying down the law to them in his epistles “he doesn’t look like much when he is here, or talk like much, but he certainly throws his weight around in his letters.” Well, Paul knew his importance in relationship to men, and he never backed down on any issue, in person or otherwise, but before God no man could have been more humble.

Yes?

[Audience Member] If they are not walking by faith then how are they walking? In other words, if they just limit faith to salvation, what are they doing…

[Rushdoony] They are not walking by faith.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] They are not thinking. They are not thinking.

[Audience Member] Do they become Arminian at that point then?

[Rushdoony] They become antinomian among other things, yes. I encountered this week some people who claimed to believe the Bible from cover to cover, but did not see its relevance to anything day by day. And it is hard to understand how people like that can say they believe the word, when all it does is to save them and keep them waiting till the end. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Perhaps this questions premature, but since you mentioned the verse 17 in Romans, what is meant by the term ‘revealed from faith to faith’?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] I will leave that till we come to it next time, because it is important, but a little premature at this point. Any other questions or comments? Yes.

[Audience Member] In other words, when you read stories about Christians going into battle, and the odds are stacked very much against them, yet they go ahead, in other words they are not thinking about what the earthly situation is, they are resting their case on faith and they are doing what they believe is right; is that the kind of thing you are talking about? In other words, you can’t always look at what is here on earth and walk that way…

[Rushdoony] That is right, you have to move always in terms of what the Lord requires of you, not what men say. You will recall a couple of weeks ago I dealt with the meeting of the National Integrity Forum in Washington where I was, and Congressman Mark (Sodander?)… or perhaps you were gone that Sunday? Yes. And his experiences and his refusal to walk by sight, because as far as sight is concerned he never would have been in Congress, and he never would have accomplished any number of things he has, but he has become a power to be reckoned with in Washington because he insists on walking by faith, and saying: ‘This is what the Lord wants me to do, and therefore this is what I must do.’

Any other questions or comments? Yes.

[Audience Member] Since we are not to limit our faith and our actions from our faith just to our church, then we should really become involved in every facet of our governments civil life, our occupational life, every thing that we do, and not hesitate to let our position be known that we are walking by faith, perhaps quote scripture as a friend of mine and I were talking about this morning, to illustrate the point to our non-believing friends and government, wherever…. Great spiritual power of Gods own word in that situation.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and one of the really marvelous things about the 80’s is that for the first time Christians are really taking voting seriously, and we still have most of them unregistered, or at least almost half of them. There is no reason why we cannot redirect this country, if we take our responsibilities just in the area of government seriously. And that is one sphere among many. So it is high time we started living by faith, because we are in histories most critical period.

Any other comments or questions? If not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

All glory be to Thee oh God, for all Thy blessings and mercies, and to the glory of Thy word which gives us a light, which tells us this is the way to walk, which comforts, strengthens, and blesses us. Give us grace therefore to walk in faithfulness to Thy word and by Thy Spirit.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.