Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study 7 of Romans, chapter 1, and we are going to read Romans 1:1-4:

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

We looked at “the gospel of God.” And then we were looking at Romans 1:2:

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

We looked at a few verses in our last study that showed places where God had made promises, and we discussed that. Now we are going to move on to Romans 1:3:

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

Verse 3 is continuing the thought in verse 1 regarding the “the gospel,” where it said, “separated unto the gospel of God.” Then verse 2 was a parenthetical thought. I do not think that was in the original text, but the King James translators used them to help our understanding of what was being said. Again, verse 2 was a parenthetical clause, and then the parenthesis closed, and it went on to say, “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord…”

Going back to what we were discussing before about the Gospel, we must ask the question: “How is anyone going to understand the Gospel if it is limited to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?” There are a fair number of people who believe that is the (whole) Gospel – simply Christ on the cross. So let us consider that. Why was it necessary for Jesus to die on the cross? If you proclaim the Gospel as Christ dying on the cross, then we ask why that was? He was demonstrating what He had done (at the foundation of the world), but that is even more complicated at this time of the end because God has opened up so much regarding that. But, in essence, Jesus’ death on the cross was demonstrating the atonement that was made at the foundation of the world, and that has to do with His dying for the sins of His people. So Christ crucified or Christ on the cross must include the information that we are sinners, or else it makes no sense. How can people comprehend anything about Christ dying on the cross if they do not understand the Bible’s teaching about sin? Man has sinned and transgressed the Law of God, offending God and coming under the wrath of God. We need all that information, but where do you find that information?

Well, you can start back at the very beginning in the Garden of Eden. Then throughout the Bible, the Lord adds more and more details, furthering our understanding and giving us more insight into our sinful condition, such as Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” And there are numerous other verses throughout the Bible, and we need these other Scriptures to understand “Christ and Him crucified,” or concerning His death on behalf of sin.

Then the next question would be this: “What is this about Jesus dying for others and being the substitute on their behalf? How can that be?” Then we go back to the Old Testament and we see all the sacrifices, as God set up these types and figures right from the beginning, and there are hundreds of verses that describe the offerings and how it must be “a lamb without spot or blemish,” indicating that Christ had to be sinless and be absolutely perfect to be qualified as the One who could take upon Himself our sins and offer up Himself as the Lamb of God, and so forth.

There is absolutely no way that anyone can just limit the Gospel to a few chapters in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and claim that is the whole Gospel. There are people that do that. It is no wonder the churches were in such desolate spiritual condition that God judged them and ended His relationship with them. It is no wonder there is still such a meager understanding of the truth and the teaching of the Bible within the churches and congregations. The people do not know anything in their ignorance of so much Biblical information, and one reason is that they throw out the Old Testament and they also limit the New Testament to “Christ and Him crucified.” And they have “missed” the Gospel – they have no idea what the true Gospel is.

And we can say, without question, that the “Gospel” is the whole Bible, including everything the Bible says in its proper time and season. In other words, something that was true three thousand years ago regarding the sacrificial system where the Jews had to go to Jerusalem three times a year (and that was the true Gospel at that time) is no longer applicable today, and no longer true. And the same can be said for the seventh day sabbath. It was true for a particular time and season, but once Christ rose from the dead, it ended that sabbath, and a new series of Sunday Sabbaths began to be observed. So anyone seeking to worship God on the seventh day and call that the Sabbath is rebelling against God.

You see, you cannot take things “out of order.” For example, you see in the Bible that there are to be deacons and elders in the churches, and they are to have oversight there, so you say, “I am going to go to church and observe the Lord’s Table and water baptism.” But these things are no more because the church age has come to an end. Those things were to be done within the confines of the church age for 1,955 years, but they are no longer to be observed.

Likewise, regarding the overall teaching of the “day of salvation,” it had its glorious time when God graciously kept the door of heaven open for quite a long time, but now He has shut it. And His shutting of the door and this period of time where there is no more salvation is just a few years, and it is nothing in comparison to the centuries and millenniums during which the door was open. There are some that will argue that such a teaching is not fair and not just, but they are really arguing against God. He is Sovereign Lord. He is sovereign regarding everything that has to do with His salvation program. He was sovereign when He determined whom He would save. He was sovereign when He determined where He would save. He saved primarily within Israel in their time period. He saved primarily within the churches in their time period. He saved outside of the churches during the second part of the Great Tribulation. He was sovereign regarding whom, where and how He would save. Did God just snap His fingers and save a person just by His divine decree without their hearing the Word of God? Absolutely not. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So God is sovereign and in His sovereign decree He determined to use a particular method to save, and it concerned His Word. It had everything to do with His Word. If people heard the Bible, they could become saved.

Sometimes, all these things would come together. Regarding whom He would save, God would not just save anyone using the Bible; they had to be His elect people that were chosen before the foundation of the world. Regarding where He would save, there could be an elect person that was in the churches at the end of the church age when the judgment was upon it, but God would not save in that location, so He would move in that person to come out of the churches. Then at some point outside of the churches and before May 21, 2011, God saved that person. Then the person could be saved because he was qualified concerning whom God had selected. He was someone that came under the hearing of the Word, so he was qualified concerning how God would save. And he was an individual who, by the grace of God, had been maneuvered into the proper location where God would save outside of the churches and congregations. Everything about it had to do with the sovereign will of Almighty God, who is sovereign over His salvation program. Salvation is of the Lord – it belongs to Him, as well as everything related to it. Likewise, God is sovereign in when He would save. From time to time in history, God has made this known. We can look back to the 2,300 evening mornings during the first part of the Great Tribulation when virtually no one was being saved anywhere in the world, and no one at all was being saved within the churches. Or, we can look back and see that there were whole nations, like island nations, at a time when men were not so able to travel the seas and reach isolated places, and the Gospel was limited to people, like Israel that had no commandment to go forth with the Gospel. God still saved a few individuals from outside of the nation of Israel, like Ruth the Moabitess or Rahab the harlot, and so forth. But, overall, it was just a paltry few individuals. There was no Great Commission. There was no one going over seas but Jonah who took the trip to Nineveh at God’s commandments, and he did not even want to do that. But over generations, isolated peoples on South Pacific aisles or the Aborigines in Australia were not brought the Gospel, so God had determined that there were no elect among them – we can be certain of that. But God had a program and a plan, and He carried it out and accomplished His will in saving a people for Himself, to the utmost!

Regarding May 21, 2011 (when the door to heaven closed), there are people that try to view it so negatively. “Oh, these people that insist on a shut door and no more salvation. It is so awful and terrible. It is the worst doctrine imaginable!” But the fact is – and the truth is – that God selected a certain number of people to be saved, and He saved them all. Therefore, if we look at it in the proper perspective, it is a thing to be celebrated. We should thank God and praise God that He has accomplished salvation to the utmost! You simply cannot get more salvation; you cannot get anyone else saved other than those that were predestinated and elected to receive it. And if there are no more elect, then there cannot be any more salvation. That is what really has happened, and that is what the Bible has revealed to us by God locking in that date.

And how truly fitting it is in a world of rebels, especially those that identify with false gospels and false religions that are not true. They claim that man can do this work or that work to get himself saved and to enter into heaven and have God’s favor upon him and live for evermore. They have polluted, perverted and twisted the true, pure Gospel of the Bible, which is a Gospel that is totally “of the Lord.” Man is not born again by his own will, but by the will of God. It is not man’s determination, but God’s determination. It is not man’s choice, but God’s choice. So how appropriate and fitting that God has ended salvation and, yet, allowed time to continue for a short while to carry out a few of His purposes, like testing His people and trying them, and having them make an appearance (a demonstration) before His judgment seat, which will prove His people to be “gold, silver precious stones” by enduring to the end.

And, also, God has His purposes for a prolonged judgment on the unsaved people of the earth, and one purpose has to be that God is going to make it known (and He has already done this and is continuing to do this) as we get closer to 2033 that there is “no more salvation.” You see, that was a sovereign decree regarding the end date of when God would save. He had a time period, as it says in Ecclesiastes 3. There is a time to live (to give eternal life in salvation), and there is a time to die (when there is no salvation). There is a time for judgment. It is Judgment Day, and God has brought this time to pass, and it proves and highlights what has been true all along – that salvation is of the Lord.

As all of these churches, theologians and other kinds of gospels come face-to-face with this teaching (no more salvation), and they say, “Well, you are wrong that the door is shut, because we had several members accept Christ. You are wrong that the door is shut because we have people speaking in tongues. You are wrong because we have baptized individuals.” Whatever work they put up, our answer is the same: “Our God is Sovereign God. I am sorry that you are under this kind of delusion because those things could never save anyone. They never did save anyone, and they are not saving anyone today. They are no proof at all. And God has made His decree, and it is His right to do so.” Those who speak against such decrees of God have the same mindset as the Arminians, as theologians call them, who fight against election and say, “If election is true, then God has made us robots, and God is unfair. It is unjust.” You see, it is all the language of the rebel, like the convicted criminal that speaks badly of the law that convicted him and the judge that sentenced him. And that is the same mindset of those that are complaining, disputing and arguing with God. They do not like what God has done or the fact that He is sovereign in this matter. They say, “No – I do not like that there is no salvation. There was always salvation before, and that is the gospel that I know, love and want, and I insist that it continue.” You see, it finally comes out. The pride of man and the will of man, as he says, “This is what I want.” There is no humility and no submission to the perfect will of God.

But God’s elect people are made humble by God and, as a result, we do submit to Him. Even though we can delight and rejoice that God has saved all those to be saved, we take no pleasure in the death of the wicked and the fact that there is no more salvation for the rest of mankind. It is a sorrowful thing. It is a grievous thing, but that does not provoke us to fight back and “kick against the pricks” and to argue and dispute with God, or to try to change His perfect will. That is not the nature of His people.

We kind of went off course a little bit, but maybe we did not because we are speaking of the Gospel of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us look at a place that shows us that we need all the Scripture in order to understand the Gospel. After Christ had been crucified and His body was in the tomb, and then He rose again, it says in Luke 24:15-23:

And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

So they understood Christ and Him crucified. They understood Jesus went to the cross, and it made them extremely sorrowful, because they had a lack of understanding of a great many things related to that. So Jesus is going to explain to them, in Luke 24:25-27:

Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

You see, Jesus went to the first five books of the Bible that were given to Moses and then to “all the prophets” and “all the scriptures” that had been compiled to that point. And that is (the definition of) “Christ and Him crucified.” If you want the Gospel and the Gospel declaration, and if you want to declare “Christ and Him crucified,” you cannot limit it to segments of the Word of God. You have to open up all Scriptures or the whole Bible.

We will stop here and, Lord willing, when we get together in our next study, we will look at verse 3: “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David …”