Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study 14 of Romans, chapter 1, and we are continuing to read from 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:

Last time we were looking at the declaration that Jesus was said to be the Son of God with power, and one of the verses we went to is found in Acts 10:37-38:

That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power. What we are learning in this study (as well as in studies over the last few years) is that God anointed Christ, and remember that the word “anointed” identifies with Jesus taking the name of Christ. Christ means “anointed one.” God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with power at the foundation of the world. It was done then, and we see many verses that confirm this, and we are going to see something else that I think is really amazing, and something we had not seen before. It will add further evidence and confirmation that it was at the point of the foundation of the world when Christ rose from the dead, declared to be the Son of God, and then the Holy Ghost came upon Him. And then there was “power.”

We went to a few verses that used the word “power,” like Acts 1:6-8 where it said, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me…” Power to do what? The Holy Ghost was poured out in 33 A. D. on the Day of Pentecost, and three thousand were saved, and it began the evangelization program of God over the course of the church age. It was the Spirit that worked within the congregations to save the firstfruits unto God. Once the church age ended, there was a period of famine lasting 2,300 evening mornings, and then came the Latter Rain when God would save the great multitude. And, again, it was through the working of the Holy Spirit with power. So “power” really identifies with God’s salvation program, and it is a word that sort of points to the activation of salvation when the Spirit would go forth and save on a much greater scale. We saw that with Pentecost and the church age, and we saw that with the great multitude saved during the second part of the Great Tribulation.

But we also see the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, with Abel, with Noah and the souls on the ark, and with Abraham, and so forth. And we see it in a major way with the city of Nineveh. How is that possible without the “power” of the Holy Spirit? And, yes, it was the Holy Spirit that saved God’s elect in the Old Testament. Remember the Lord moved David to write in Psalm 51:10-11:

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

You see, it is the same Holy Spirit that the New Testament believers had indwelling them, and it was the same wonderful work being done in the inner man of David that was done in the inner man of God’s people all during the New Testament era. And it had to be done with “power.”

Look up that word. It is really a wonderful word that helps us to understand many things, and it touches upon many areas of our lives, as a matter of fact. We read in 2Timothy 1:6:

Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

The gift of God is His salvation, His Spirit. Then it goes on to say in 2Timothy 1:7:

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

It is that wonder-working Spirit, the powerful Spirit of God. The Word of God is quick and powerful, and it is the Spirit that takes that Word and operates within those God has chosen to save, and the Spirit works within them, moving in them to will and to do of His good pleasure. And that is one aspect of the Spirit’s powerful working in the lives of God’s elect children. Of course, before that He had to save them in order to make them “adopted sons” and His children through election and God’s predestination program.

Again, God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, and that anointing was at the point when Christ rose from the dead. That is the picture that God gives us, is it not? And we can learn about this in the mini historical parable when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. We are told in Matthew 3 that Jesus went from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him, and it says in Matthew 3:16:

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water…

And His going up out of the water would identify with the resurrection. He arose. Remember, as we sing every Easter, “Up from the grave He arose.” He rose up, and the water of Jordan, in this case, typifies the wrath of God or hell and the grave, just like when the Jordan was at flood stage when Israel came to cross the Jordan after wandering forty years in the wilderness. And that was another beautiful parable God gave, and the Levites carried the ark to indicate that Christ goes first, and then all Israel followed after, which would refer spiritually to “spiritual Israel,” pointing to all those that become saved and are circumcised in heart.

That is the idea here as Jesus came to John at the river Jordan to be baptized. First, to be baptized He went down into the water. (It does not mean that He had to be dunked fully in the water; He could have been standing in the water.) He went down into the water, and this would represent what we read in Romans 6:3-5:

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

Do you see how God is linking baptism with death? Because that is exactly what it does link with spiritually, so it is exactly what it does portray and illustrate. Remember that excellent book written by Mr. Camping, titled, “Baptism: The Washing Away of Sin.” That is the point of baptism. And what washes away sin? The only thing that will cleanse sin is death because there is a price to be paid. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death.” God cannot just simply wave His hand and say, “I forgive you.” That is the idea in some religions. He cannot just overlook all the transgressions and enormous iniquity and just make a statement of forgiveness. No – He is a God of justice, as well as mercy, and justice must be satisfied. The scales of justice must be balanced. If the Law demands that the penalty for sin is death and, therefore, there must be death, and that is what Christ did for His people. When the sins of His people were laid upon Him, He died. And in death, the payment for all the elect whose names were recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life was made. It covered every one of those sins. It would be of no value to put 99% of an individual’s sins upon Him. If they had 1% of the sins remaining because they would still have to die, so it had to be all the sins of all the people that were chosen by God, according to His good pleasure. By the way, we are going to understand that statement better than we have ever understood it before. We have always said that the only reason anyone becomes saved was due to God’s good pleasure, as if He just “pulled our names out of hat,” or something. But, no, there is much more significance to that statement that now fits in. Now we can see that in God’s revealing that Christ died and rose at the point of the foundation of the world…well, I do not want to jump ahead. We will get into that, Lord willing, maybe in our next study and we will see how that fits.

But, you see, it is true that once Christ died, He paid for the sins of everyone He died for, as the Law required. But there was also the matter of “rising up” or resurrecting. It was absolutely necessary. How could we know there was acceptance by God and genuine satisfaction on the Law’s part and that all the penalty had been paid? So Christ made payment and overcame death and was victorious, and the Father raised Him and brought Him up out of the river Jordan, spiritually. That historical incident is portraying that God the Father brought Christ up from the dead. Jesus went up straightway out of the water, and then it says in Matthew 3:16:

…and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:

This is the “door” to heaven. This is how all the saints of God gained entry into the kingdom of God in heaven above. It was through what Christ had done when He died and made full payment, and then He arose with that righteous declaration. He was clean from all iniquity – all sin had been washed away by the Word or the Law of God, which had punished Him. The Word is capable of judging, destroying and bringing death, and it brought death to Christ. Then He was washed and cleansed and “baptized” and all for whom He died were baptized in Him. That is what Romans, chapter 6 is saying, and I want to read Romans 6:3-5:

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

The sign of (water) baptism does not save anyone. It does not wash away any sin whatsoever, but it is a sign pointing to the glorious truth that we were counted to be “in Christ,” and, therefore, when He rose from the dead, we rose up with Him. Of course, that happened before the world was. It was before creation or before the fall of man into sin and, therefore, God determined to make these things manifest. We have talked about this, and that is what is going on in our present time as God is bringing His elect (as well as the wicked) before the judgment seat, and all are standing before the Judge. All are coming before God, but only the elect will stand through the judgment and endure to the end. In so doing, we will demonstrate on that last day that we did have our sins washed away and paid for in Christ at the foundation of the world. And when we are resurrected on the last day, and we come up out of this world that has been turned into the condition of hell and the grave, then we will have fulfilled the demonstration. Of course, God will receive great glory as He has put this on display to all the principalities and powers. This is all due to Christ working in His people to accomplish this, and this is all part of His saving work. Then there will be that beautiful picture of us coming straightway up out of the water and the heaven will be opened unto us.

Then after it says the heavens were opened unto Him, it says, “and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.” Again, this takes us back to the foundation of the world, and this is telling us at that point in eternity past of His rising from the dead, the Spirit of God was activated in that the Spirit of God was able to save and to bring salvation from that point forward. That is what is really in view here and it is why we read of the Spirit descending upon Christ at this point. If His baptism at the Jordan River is related to His death as the Lamb slain at the foundation of the world (and it is); and if His coming up out of the water also directs us back to that point in eternity past (and it does), then so, too, would the descending of the dove upon Him. Basically, it was God revealing that salvation is now all prepared. And remember that it does tell us in Matthew 25 concerning events that took place at the foundation of the world, as it says in Matthew 25:34:

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

So the work was finished. Everything was settled. The Spirit was now ready to go forth. And what do we find? We find that Abel was seen as righteous in God’s sight. Then we see that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and so forth. There is the saving work of God’s Holy Spirit.

God could have saved that great multitude He saved at the time of the end at any point in time. Of course, numbers would have been an issue in the Old Testament, as the world population had to grow to a certain point. But we can see that possibility in God saving a multitude of the Ninevites. From everything we can read in the Bible, that was the “great multitude” of the Old Testament era. If He saved a multitude of Ninevites, then He saved more Ninevites than He saved on the Day of Pentecost when He saved three thousand people. From everything we can read, many more Ninevites were saved than that, so we have to understand that God simply had a salvation program wherein He determined to work within “times and seasons” and in stages.

And God also wanted to bring revelation in stages. There were the Old Testament Scriptures, and then came the New Testament when He completed the Bible. Then at the time of the end, He opened the Scriptures that had been sealed up and, as it were, brought forth a “new covenant” without the addition of a single jot or tittle. It was all the opening of the understanding of His people to what was already written in the Bible, and God had determined to work this way. But from everything we can see, there is no hinderance for Him to save a great many at one time, even in the Old Testament. And that is because the Holy Spirit had already been “activated.” The Holy Spirit had already descended upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and with power. He was declared to be the Son of God with power. Power would come upon Him. Power would energize the Word and cause it to be quick and powerful to be able to create a new heart and a new spirit, as it did with David. So we can see all these things are in view here, and everything fits together harmoniously and wonderfully.

Then it goes on to say in Matthew 3:17:

And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

And this statement is full of information, even some information we had not seen before. We do see right away that it is a declaration of sonship in history in 29 A. D. when Jesus was being baptized and began his three and a half years of ministry. It should not be overlooked that this declaration was at the point of His coming up out of the water. Once we understand the water to represent the grave, hell and death and the coming up to represent the resurrection, then we see the declaration of sonship exactly matching our verse in Romans 1:4:

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

There are all the same ingredients. Everything is identical when we look to the spiritual understanding of Matthew 3:16-17.

Lord willing, in our next study we are going to look more closely at this declaration that Jesus is God’s beloved Son, in whom God says He is “well pleased.”