Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study 10 of Romans, chapter 1, and we are reading Romans 1:3-4:

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:

In our last study, we looked at the last part of verse 3 that said Christ was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh.” And now we are moving on to Romans 1:4:

And declared to be the Son of God with power…

The word “declared” is also translated as “determined” or “determinate,” or “ordained,” as it pertains to the Lord Jesus. For example, it says in Acts 2:23:

Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

This was something that God had “determined,” and in our verse this determination had to do with the Son of God, so I think that the translators correctly translated it as “declared” because that was one of the possibilities, as God allowed them to translate it this way. If we go back to the Old Testament to the book of Psalms, it says in Psalm 2:7:

I will declare the decree…

Here, we can see the similarity very clearly with what is written in Romans 1:4:

And declared to be the Son of God with power…by the resurrection from the dead:

Psalm 2:7 has everything to do with that, as it says, “I will declare the decree,” and that decree was made within the counsel of the Godhead in eternity past. Then it goes on to say in Psalm 2:7:

… JEHOVAH hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.

Do not be misled, as God does write the Bible using words and phrases that could easily be misunderstood on the part of the reader. While unsaved people can sometimes hold to right doctrine and have an intellectual understanding of it to some degree, God has written the Bible in a mysterious way when He wants to conceal or hide truth. And if you want to hide something, you can make it appear that it goes to the left or to the right, but it is a different course. And that is what God has done in using the word “day” here. When we read, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee,” we certainly do not think of it happening in eternity past at the foundation of the world when the world was not yet created. Of course we would not, because He uses the word “day,” and that is a word we are very familiar with, as we wake up every day. God created the sun, moon and stars (the timekeepers) and set the world in motion right from the beginning, the first day, followed by the second day and the third day, and time unfolds day by day. Therefore, we immediately assume (because we are creatures of time) that this “day” has to refer to 33 A. D. because that would be in the boundaries of time. And that would be a wrong assumption, and it would lead to an incorrect conclusion. When God refers to “day,” He is referring to the “day of salvation” and that is what happened at that point in eternity past when the Lord Jesus had the sins of His people laid upon Him, and God struck Him dead for those sins. He died, and then rose again. He rose to life, and came up out of death, declared to be the Son of God. And at that point, came the “day” or came the “life,” as life identifies with the day, does it not? It was the time for “light” regarding God’s magnificent salvation program, because now there was salvation – there was “life” that sprang forth as Christ rose from the dead. And that produced the light of the Gospel, and we see this when Jesus is described in John 1, where we are told that He was in the beginning and He was God, and then it says in John 1:3-4:

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

Do you see how God links “light” to “life,” and “life” further links to “day”? How is Christ the light of men? It was the fact that He paid the price for the sins of His people – not for everyone, but those chosen – and when He paid that penalty of death for us, He purchased “life.” He had shed His blood, and from that point God would be obligated, as the world was created and the history of the world unfolded in each generation, to save each one of those elect: “Here is one of those elect whose sins Jesus paid for and, therefore, let us give life.” So the Word of God would be sent to find that individual, and through the Word, faith would come with salvation of the soul, and that person would receive eternal life with the promise of life to come; even after that person would die physically, he would still live on because his spirit would go to be with the Lord to await the coming kingdom of God and the end of this world. And on the last day, he will receive his new resurrected spiritual body.

Because Christ was the life, that life brought salvation. And that is the point of Psalm 2 and the decree that was declared: “I will declare the decree: JEHOVAH hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” This “day” is really a synonym for salvation and for Christ, the glorious and wonderful Saviour that had been begotten. It says in Psalm 118:22-24:

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the JEHOVAH'S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day which JEHOVAH hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

You could read this: “We will rejoice and be glad in Him.” He is the “Day” and the life of the world. Salvation is of the Lord. It is really a person. It is Christ, as Psalm 2:7 is also saying as part of the decree: “Thou art my Son.” This is the decree or declaration of God that Christ is the Son of God, and at the foundation of the world when He rose up to be the essence of salvation, God declared, “This day have I begotten thee.” That is key.

When we think of a son, this idea of being “begotten” comes into view. A father begets a son, and this is very familiar language in the Bible and, yet, it is often overlooked. (We will be kind and we will not say that some people are intentionally overlooking it, but it is overlooked.) They do not ask or think about it, but there is a very simple question, because we know from the Bible that Jesus is the Son of God. It is said numerous times. But the question that is not asked that often is this: “Why is He the Son of God? How can He be the Son of God? In what way is He the Son of God? Why does God the Father call Him His Son? Why did Jesus call God the Father His Father? Are we not to ask these things?” God gives Himself names in the Bible, and He has many names, like God, Father, Spirit, Jesus Christ, Word, Emmanuel, and so forth. God has given Himself numerous names, like JEHOVAH and, typically, there is a meaning attached, and there is purpose behind it. It really instructs us regarding some aspect of God’s Person or Being or, perhaps, an attribute of His. God does not do it by chance or randomly. Everything has deep meaning, so why is Jesus called the Son of God? It is a straight-forward question. It is an honest question. Does the Bible answer that question? Yes – it does. And all we have to do is look up the Bible’s own words.

Here in Psalm 2:7 it says, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee,” and we find this is quoted in Hebrews 1:1-2:

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

We are going to continue in this passage, but I want to stop here for a second. We are introduced here to the Son. It does not say that in these last days He hath spoken unto us by Jesus, or any other name we associate with Jesus. But it specifically refers to Him as “Son,” and we are told that in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. And then still speaking of His Son, it goes on to say, “whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.” By what name was it that God made the worlds? The answer is that it was “the Son of God.” The Son made the worlds; that is He created the whole universe. He created this earth, and He created all the plants. He made everything in this creation, and we recognize and understand that. Jesus is God – we understand that. We also understand that there is the Trinity. There is One God, and we must realize that and, yet, God reveals Himself in the Bible as three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the Father can be referred to as other names, like God. The Son can be referred to as other names, like Jesus Christ, the Word, and so forth. The Spirit can be referred to as the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and so forth. So there is One God in three Persons, and each of the three Persons of the Trinity (as theologians call it) has multiple names that would identify with that particular Person of the Godhead, and we understand that. Again, when God uses a name, it is always purposeful. It is always teaching us something about Himself.

In this case, in Hebrews 1:2 we are told that the Son is the one who made the worlds. We will read another passage that will confirm that. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the Creator. God is the Creator. Back in Genesis, remember it said, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and the word “God” is “el-o-heem,” which is a plural name for God. It was translated correctly in the singular by the King James translators because the God of the Bible is One and, yet, three Persons. So in a beautiful way, that idea comes across when the King James translators did this. (They did a wonderful work and, certainly, God was watching over the project, making sure things were done in a certain way according to His will.) Within that permissive will of God, they translated the plural word “el-o-heem” in a singular manner, and it really conveys a mysterious truth that the elect child of God submits to without truly being able to comprehend it, due to our limitations and finite nature. Yes, we recognize that this is absolute truth – God is One and, yet, three. Jesus said, “I and my Father are one.” You cannot separate them. God is this mysterious, Almighty and glorious Being who is way beyond us, and we simply cannot understand, but here in Hebrews (and in other places) God points to “the Son of God,” and identifies Him as the Creator.

Someone might be saying, “I get that, but why the big emphasis? What (idea) are you trying to get across?” But it is not what I am trying to get across, but it is what the Bible is leading us to is an understanding that is often overlooked and not really thought of, as the readers of the Scriptures have, for the most part, “glossed over” it in their minds. And this is the fact that Jesus is the begotten Son of God, and as that Son, He created the world, which means that He was “the Son of God” before this world began. He created the world, already declared to be the Son of God, a name God the Father had given Him. How was it said in Psalm 2:7? “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” And that declaration had to have taken place prior to the creation of this world. In order for Jesus to have been the Creator of the world (and He was), then God’s declaration of His name being “the Son of God” had to have taken place prior to His creative work, the six days we read about in Genesis when everything was created. It had to happen beforehand, and that is the simple truth, and He was “the Son of God” at that point.

Let us go on in Hebrews 1. Again, it says in Hebrews 1:2-3:

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

Here, we are being informed of the atoning work that Jesus did. He purged our sins, and then sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Many people believe that this happened in “time” in 33 A. D. One cannot Biblically hold on to that conclusion, and we will see why that is as we continue in this study. We are not going to get to it in this particular study, but in a future study we will see why that idea is impossible.

It goes on to say in Hebrews 1:4-5:

Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

We will stop and take our time to think about these things. I am sure there could be one of God’s elect that is struggling with this and not seeing this clearly. Now is your opportunity, so pray that you would search the Scriptures to see if these things be so. That is, have a positive mindset toward what we are studying, and do not just search the Scriptures to try to prove why it is not so. That is not what the Bereans did. When they heard a teaching, they would run to the Bible and checked to see if it were so. Was it possible? Could it be? And that should be the way we approach this.

When we read verse 3 which said of Christ, “when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,” you may be thinking of 33 A. D., but in verse 5 God referred to Psalm 2:7 as He said, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?” He is telling us that this is why Jesus was called the Son, and this is also why God was called the Father. You know, it works both ways. Without a son, you are not a father. So if we understand verse 5 to also apply to Christ’s death and resurrection in 33 A. D., then the reference to “this day have I begotten thee,” would have to do with that point in time in 33 A. D. But now there is a problem, if you believe that. Now you have a major problem. Do you see what it is? Remember what it said in Hebrews 1:2: “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;” But if Jesus’ purging of sin through His atoning work was done in 33 A. D., it would have been over 11,000 years after the creation of the world, so how could He be called “the Son of God” before the world was? And that is the question you have to answer.