Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study 15 of Romans, chapter 1, and we are reading 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:

We are taking our time. I know we may be going too slow for some people, but I do not see a need to rush, especially when we are looking at a verse that is so important. It has been a stumblingblock for so many people that have not been able to see the mysteries or hidden truths God has placed here and, yet, God is opening up the understanding of these verses, more and more, to His people at this time of the end.

So I am hoping there may be someone out there listening who is taking the time to check these things out.

We were looking at Matthew 3 at the end of our last study, and we saw how it fits in. We went here because it tells us in Romans 1:4 that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. And when we look up that word “power” (in the Bible), it has to do, again, and again, with the work of the Holy Spirit, especially in salvation, but He also works within those He has saved.

We looked at Matthew 3:16-17 when Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan by John the Baptist, and He went up straightway out of the water, and the heavens were opened and the Spirit, like a dove, descended upon Him. And we saw how this fits in with the foundation of the world, as the river Jordan can be a picture of the wrath of God or death and hell. So Christ first went into the river Jordan before He could come up, as it said that He “went up straightway out of the water,” so that means He had to be down in the water, so He was experiencing the wrath of God. But this was the start of His ministry, not the end of His ministry at the time of the cross. So God is not telling us something that would happen, but He is telling us something that happened already, as Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It was then that the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him.

By the way, the word translated as “lighting” is an interesting translation, but it is simply the Greek word that is often translated as “come” or “came,” so the Holy Spirit came upon Him. Also, God links the Holy Spirit to a “dove” in these verses, and we will look at parallel Scriptures in Mark and Luke. That, additionally, ties in with the prophet Jonah, whose name means “dove,” and it was the second time He was commanded to go to Nineveh when that great work of salvation took place in Nineveh. So, once again, that is another historical parable where we see the Holy Spirit and His work of salvation, and that is the “power” energized by Christ’s atoning work of faith performed at the foundation of the world. So salvation was gotten underway, and He had done everything necessary in bearing the sins of His people, paying for those sins, and rising from the dead, so that the Spirit could go to work with “power.” He did His work in the Old Testament. He did His work during the church age, and He did His work during the second part of the Great Tribulation, and completed His work of salvation.

But that is not our topic at this time. We are looking at this mini historical parable of Christ going down into the Jordan river and coming up, a picture of resurrection, and then the Holy Spirit descending upon Him, and then it says in Matthew 3:17:

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

God makes this declaration, and then in the next chapter, it says in Matthew 4:1:

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

God makes the declaration, “This is my beloved Son,” and then the ministry of Christ begins and, immediately, He was tempted of the devil.

And, by the way, in His temptation, how was the devil referring to Jesus Christ? We see it in Matthew 4:3:

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

And it says in Matthew 4:6:

And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down…

So as He was tempted, He was addressed by the title or name, “Son of God,” and that is how God ended chapter 3: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” That is the point of Romans 1:4: “And declared to be the Son of God with power…by the resurrection from the dead.” And that is the picture in this parable. You tell me – we have all heard this before, have we not? If you are someone that had been a Family Radio listener or any elect child of God that understands how God wrote the Bible in parables; and how Christ spoke in parables and without a parable He did not speak; and of you have listened to studies by Mr. Camping and, typically, you were in agreement and felt he was a good and faithful man of God who rightly divided the Scriptures (as I personally believe), then you recognized as I made reference to the river Jordan being a picture of hell, death and the wrath of God, that you have heard that before. It is nothing new. You know, when you are looking for deeper spiritual meanings in the Bible, we have mentioned that numerous times. It is nothing new.

The coming up out of the waters (has spiritual meaning). If the river Jordan represents death and hell, then, obviously, what is coming up? It is coming up out of death. And what does it mean to come up out of death? It is called “resurrection.” That is nothing new. We are not just pulling things out of thin air. These are sound doctrines. These are sound understandings of the Word of God regarding how God wrote the Bible. We are following the sound instruction of God to look for the deeper spiritual meaning, and to search the Scriptures, comparing spiritual with spiritual. And we do not go outside the Bible either.

We follow these sound directions that are typical of what God’s elect have been following for many centuries in order to understand the Bible, and we come up with this picture of Jesus dying as He goes into the river Jordan and resurrecting as He comes up out of the river Jordan and the Spirit descending at that point as the Father is making the declaration, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Again, all the ingredients of Romans 1:4 are here, as well as what we have learned about Christ dying as the Lamb slain at the foundation of the world. He died and resurrected, and He was declared the Son upon that resurrection. It is identical.

Remember that we spent some time going through verses that show that Jesus was already the Son of God when He created the world. He was declared to be the Son through the resurrection from the dead, and God just illustrated it for us in this historical parable which further confirms what we are reading in Romans 1:4. Then how could it be possible that He was declared the Son before the world was created? What is going on? If we follow the traditional, theological understanding, which is pretty much accepted by everyone, that Christ paid for sin at the cross and He arose that Sunday morning justified, in 33 A. D., then it should be then that He was declared the Son and then that took upon Himself that name or title, as God said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” because God was satisfied with the atonement performed in 33 A. D. But, again, this took place before time began. And remember that other verse in Hebrews 1:6 where it said that God brought His firstbegotten into the world. He was already the firstbegotten. In what way? We spent time looking at that. He was the firstbegotten from the dead. He was the firstborn Son of God because He was the first to rise from the dead, and He did so before Moses rose from the dead.

Again, if you hold on to this idea that payment for sin was made at the cross and that was the first time He died and the first time He rose again, then nothing fits. Nothing fits. You know, if you are working on a puzzle, you have dozens of pieces that will not fit in the proper place until you start at the right point. With the Bible, you must begin at the foundation of the world regarding the Bible’s declaration in Romans 13:8 that Christ was the Lamb slain (that means He was killed, and He died) from the foundation of the world. The Bible says that – not me. And Mr. Camping did not come up with that – it was the Bible. And God wrote the Bible, so it was God who said that Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Let us now look at some of these parallel chapters. Let us turn to Mark 1:9-11:

And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Then it says in Luke 3:21-22:

Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.

In each case, there is the declaration of sonship: “my beloved Son.” And then God states, “I am well pleased.” Why does God say that? Well, He is the Father, and fathers are well pleased with their sons. But why then? Why at that point? We understand from Romans 1:4 why He said, “This is my beloved Son.” Again, He was firstborn from the dead. That is the picture when He came up out of the water, picturing resurrection. He is risen from the wrath of God, coming up from the grave to be declared the Son. It is a very clear Biblical teaching and we understand it very well now, but why did God say, again, and again, after stating, “This is my beloved Son,” and then add, “in whom I am well pleased”? That is curious. I never really thought about that. Maybe you have, but I had never really thought about it. It was just something that was part of the verse and, yet, when you think about it, it is really declaring an important truth.

There is another place that God writes about often, and it is found in different Gospel accounts, where He makes a similar statement, so let us turn to Matthew 17:1-5:

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

You can see how similar that is to what the Father said when Christ rose up out of the river Jordan. Again, we have tied that in with the declaration of God at the foundation of the world where He was declared to be the Son. But we wonder why it is in this context.

It is also found in Mark 9:2-9:

And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. For he wist not what to say; for they were sore afraid. And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves. And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead.

So, again, God the Father came on the Mount of Transfiguration where Jesus, Moses and Elias were meeting, and we are told that Jesus’ raiment was shining, exceeding white as snow, and we are told He was transfigured before them. The Greek word translated as “transfigured” is also found back in Matthew 17, and it is a word that is translated as “transformed” in Romans 12:2:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…

In this case, it has to do with the transformation of the soul, as “mind” and “heart” are synonyms for the soul, and it is what God brings to pass when someone becomes saved. The old heart of stone is taken away, and a new heart is given. It is a new resurrected heart. That is the transformed heart of the elect child of God. This word that was translated as “transfigured” is also translated as “changed.” In this case, it was a bodily change of Christ because Moses and Elias were with Him, and we know Moses died and he could only have been in view because he was resurrected. And if he was resurrected (and he was), that would mean he had his new resurrected body. He had to have a changed body because he could not be in heaven in an earthly, fleshly body, as the Bible says, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” So Moses had to have a transfigured body. Likewise, with Elijah who was translated and never died. He went to heaven without his body going into the grave, so God changed him and took him, just like He will do to all the elect on the last day. He will change us, and we will receive new resurrected spiritual bodies. Therefore, Elijah also had a transfigured body, and Christ had a transfigured body, and He was shining with the brilliance of the sun. It was a glorified, resurrected body.

Where did He get that body? We know that the Bible tells us that He bore our sins in His body on the tree, in 1Peter, and that cannot be referring to 33 A. D. because it also speaks of bearing sin. God does not allow “double jeopardy.” That is, one cannot pay for the same crime twice. Jesus paid for sin at the foundation of the world, and it was there He bore our sins. Being “on the tree” has to do with the principle that whoever hangs on a tree is accursed. So He was cursed at the foundation of the world which is the equivalent of hanging on a tree. That is how we can understand that – there did not have to be a literal tree, nor did He have to literally hang on a tree. But He was accursed, and that is the equivalent spiritually of hanging on a tree. He had a body…

By the way, it was not necessary that Christ come forth from the Virgin (a human mother) in order for Him to be equipped with a body. That has sort of been the idea. Jesus had to come through the line of mankind in order to receive a man’s body. But that is not true, is it? And we know it is not true. How do we know? When we go back to the account of the Garden of Eden, we see that God made Adam from the dust of the ground. Adam did not come forth from any preceding person. He was not born of a human being. He was made from the dust of the ground. In other words, God simply made Him a body. And that is what God did to Himself (as Jesus is God), and He made Himself a body at the foundation of the world to bear the sins of man. He died and rose again, and at the point of His resurrection when He was declared to be the Son of God: “Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” At that point, He received a new resurrected spiritual body. And that is the significant thing about God making this declaration as we read here in Mark and in Matthew, and it is also found in 2Peter 1:16-18:

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

God is declaring Christ as “my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” at a time when Jesus is meeting with Moses and Elijah, and they had been transfigured. That is, Christ was taking away the “veil.” As He entered into the world, born of the Virgin Mary, He took another body because the body that He possessed from the foundation of the world had been glorified – it was a glorified, resurrected spiritual body. So He took another body to show Himself and to demonstrate the things that had been accomplished at the foundation of the world, and for that instant (or for however long this took place on the Mount of Transfiguration), He put off that earthly body He was born into the world with, and He showed briefly that resurrected body that He had when He came up out of the water, spiritually, and came up out of the dead and resurrected at the foundation of the world. That was when He first received that body, and that is why God is, again, making the declaration: “Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”