Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study 18 of Romans, chapter 1, and we are going to read Romans 1:5-7:

By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: 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 are moving on to verse 5 and, of course, it begins by saying, “By whom we have received grace and apostleship.” We know who is in view. It is Jesus, the one who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: “By whom we have received grace and apostleship.” It is speaking of God’s salvation program, this glorious and wonderful gift that He has bestowed upon His people.

Let us turn to John, chapter 1, where we read of God giving this grace. It says in John 1:11-17:

He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

So we see that it was by Jesus Christ, “by whom we have received grace and apostleship.” “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” as it says here in John 1:17.

But before we look at this grace that God has granted to His people, we should look at the word “received,” which was used in our verse in Romans 1:5. And it is used here in John 1. It is Strong’s #2983, and it is found in verse 12. Actually, it is the same word that was used with a prefix in verse 11, Strong’s #3680: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” Then in verse 12, it says, “But as many as received him,” and that is the identical word without the prefix, that is used in John 1:12:

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

There are those that believe it is man’s free will that gets them saved. They think and teach: “It is up to you to accept Him. Christ has done His part and He has done everything He could do by dying and making salvation possible, and now it depends on you, the sinner, to decide what you are going to do with it.” Those that emphasize the free will of man like to use verses like Romans 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” They think they receive Christ by accepting Him and believing on Him, and then they are saved: “Yes, it is a gift of God, but you have to do your part by reaching out your hand and accepting it.” Of course, they are just trying to bring free will into the equation, and they want man to do something. They cannot imagine or conceive of a Gospel where the sinner can do nothing. And, yet, that is the teaching of the Bible. The Bible presents that very kind of Gospel. The Gospel of the Bible has Christ and the sinner in view, just as free will gospels have Christ at its center, but the Gospel of the Bible show us the true condition of man in historical parables like the account of Lazarus, dead in a tomb. The living God (Jesus) was outside the tomb and issued forth the commandment, “Lazarus, come forth.” That is a picture of salvation, the resurrection of the soul or the first resurrection. Christ commanded, “Lazarus, come forth,” but how could he hear when he was dead? It was only because God gave him life. (We know that Lazarus was already saved, but the picture of his physical resurrection is a picture of salvation, but I will stick to the historical parable or earthly illustration that was an actual event in history.) Christ commanded the dead body of Lazarus to come forth, but because his body was dead, it could not hear. So as part of the “overall package” of salvation, God gave life to Lazarus in which he received ears to hear the command. Then he rose up and came out of the tomb, still bound hand and foot in graveclothes, and then Christ told them to loose him and let him go.

You see, if we use that historical event as God uses it as a portrayal of salvation, the free will gospel begins with the call of the gospel, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” and then the sinner responding to that call. But they are jumping a major step in the process, and that is the giving of the ears to hear. How do you hear the call if you are dead, unless Christ has already given you life? And in that life, you “receive” spiritual ears, and you can hear the voice of Christ, and you then respond. But the free will gospels skip over that part.

Let us look at this word “received.” The Greek word is pronounced “lam-ban'-o”, and it is #2983 in Strong’s Concordance. Let us look at some of the things that God says we “receive.” It says in John 13:20:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.

That is, when Christ sends out the Gospel, He sends His people with the truth, and they carry it as messengers. If it is received, we have received Christ and the Father – we have received God.

It says in John 14:16-17:

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

The implication, clearly, is that God’s elect do receive the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit. We receive the Holy Spirit from God when we become saved, and that gives us “ears” to discern truth, whereas the unbelievers cannot receive that Spirit of truth. That means when they hear the truth, they do not believe it. Remember that Jesus said that in John 8:45: “And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.” And that has to do with the lack of the Spirit of truth – they do not have the indwelling Spirit of God or of Christ. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. So they do not have “ears” to hear the truth, which means they do not have a love of the truth and, therefore cannot receive the truth. God’s elect receive the truth.

So that is telling us about a couple of very big things that we “receive.” We receive the Spirit. We receive the truth. We receive these things when God saves us.

It says in John 20:21-23:

Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

This is more the “official” giving of the Holy Spirit to the people of God as we received the true Gospel commission in the day of salvation to go forth with that Gospel and carry it to the four corners of the world to share the truth of the Word of God. Of course, we know that this is preconditioned by (a prior) event in heaven, as we read in one of the Gospel accounts: “whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall having been loosed in heaven.” This reminds us that God is doing the work, and it only occurs because of what He had done first, and the action in heaven concerning the remission of sins or the retention of sins (for those that are saved and those that are unsaved) by the twoedged sword, the Word of God. So when it says, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” it fits in with what is said in Acts 1:8:

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

So it was, for instance, the official receiving of the Spirit within the churches and congregations during the church age; or, it was the receiving of the power of the Holy Spirit outside of the churches and congregations after the church age was over, during the little season of Great Tribulation.

Continuing to look at this word “receive,” it says in Acts 26:17-18:

Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

There is the faith of Christ, and that is what saves. Here, the statement is made: “…that they may receive forgiveness of sins.” If we are a true elect child of God, we have received this beautiful, unspeakable gift of having all of our sins forgiven – all of them. The more sins we have done, the more glorious it is, is it not? It is a tremendous gift, and this is what God has given us. We receive the Spirit of God. We receive the truth of God. We receive forgiveness of sin. The abundance of God’s grace toward us is just incredible, and it continues to grow because as we live our lives, we continue to sin (in the body), and the more grace we see that God has bestowed upon us.

It says in 1Corinthians 2:10-13:

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

Again, it says in verse 12: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” We have received the Spirit of truth. We have received truth, and we have received knowledge, knowing the things that are given to us of God.

Remember, in Deuteronomy 29, there is that very interesting verse at the end of the chapter, in Deuteronomy 29:29:

The secret things belong unto JEHOVAH our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

God reveals His secrets, the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” we read in Matthew 13. That is, it is the revealing of the mystery of Christ speaking in parables, or of the historical parables of the Old Testament, or of the parabolic statements made in Ezekiel, Daniel, the book or Proverbs, Revelation, or anywhere else, because Christ spoke in parables, “and without a parable spake he not unto them.” We have “received” them from God that we might know the things freely given to us of God.

Do you ever wonder, “Why did God grant me understanding? How is it that I know about the end of the church age and so many other professed Christians do not know, in the sense of discerning the truth of it?” Well, this is why you know it, but so many do not know, which is in keeping with how it is with all truth. The few (the elect), know it because we have received it. The many (the non-elect) do not know it because they cannot receive it. They cannot receive the things of God or the Spirit of God, which is the truth. And, therefore, they cannot come to a right knowledge of God. “A wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment,” because God has given it to them as part of the overall package of salvation, and they have received it from the hands of God. But none of the wicked shall understand. The wise understand, as we read in Daniel, but none of the wicked understand, as it says in Proverbs 28:5:

Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek JEHOVAH understand all things.

It is simply because understanding comes to us of God. God causes us or makes us to know these things.

Notice that it also said in 1Corinthians 2:12, “…that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” Remember that Scripture in Matthew 10 that we mainly associate with financial giving. We want to support the Lord’s work, and this verse might quickly come to mind: “Freely ye have received, freely give.” That is what it says in Matthew 10:6-8:

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

Primarily, this has to do with salvation or the truth of the Word of God, as we received the Spirit. We have received the truth. We have received knowledge to know the truth and to know the right doctrines of the Bible. We have received these things freely. Freely God has given them to us, and you and I and the true elect children of God have received these things and, therefore, we freely give these things. And that does relate to giving of our funds or our time, because in order to freely give the truth, we support ministries that are involved in dispersing and sharing the truth of the Word of God. Why are we supporting them? It is because we have received (salvation), and now we wish to freely give unto others. Our understanding is that if they receive a teaching or Biblical material, they might receive the blessing of truth. So that is why it can get into the areas of financial support or other support like time and resources.

If we go to 1Peter, there is a related verse. It says in 1Peter 4:9-10:

Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

See how that fits in with receiving spiritual blessing from God for ourselves, in the first instance: “As every man hath received the gift.” That would tie in with Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” If you are an elect and you have received the gift, “even so minister the same one to another,” in the day of salvation so that other elect could obtain salvation through the hearing of the Word of God. At this time, in the Day of Judgment, if we have been fed by the truth and the knowledge of God regarding the end, the judgment, and the revelation of His righteous judgment, then we are to minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. And, of course, this ties in with 1Corinthians 4:1 where it says we are stewards of the mysteries of God; and that would mean we are stewards of the deeper spiritual truths of the Bible. The churches cannot be because they do not understand them, but only God’s people are good stewards of the manifold grace of God, and we wish to share the true and faithful Gospel, which is the truth of the Bible from Genesis through Revelation.

Let us just go to two more verses. Turn to 1Corinthians 4:7:

For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

And this gets back to the Biblical answer for the free will pastors and other individuals that attempt to force John 1:12 to tie in with the idea that it is man’s action or man’s decision to “receive” the Gospel and accept it. No – as it says here, if we have received it, what do we have to glory in?

It says in John 3:27:

John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.

Every verse we looked at talked about “receiving,” whether it be receiving the Spirit, receiving the truth, or receiving knowledge. It is all part of the gift of God, and we could receive none of it unless God granted it as a gift.