Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study 28 of Romans, chapter 1, and we are going to read Romans 1:12-15:

That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

In our last study, we were looking at verse12, and we were talking about the “mutual faith both of you and me.” We went to a verse in 2Timothy, and I want to go back there again, because we were at the end of the last study and I want to make sure we did not rush through this. I think this is an important point, and it is really Biblical evidence that “the faith” is Christ. Paul, in the opening address to Timothy, thanks God and he says, in 2Timothy 1:4-5:

Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy; When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.

The key word, in addition to the word “faith,” is the word “dwelt.” We looked at a few verses in our last study, and I want to look at them again. Remember this is Strong’s #1774. It is a compound word that literally means “indwell.” That is what this word “dwelt” means, so the unfeigned faith which is in Timothy dwelt first in his grandmother Lois, and then in his mother Eunice. And now it dwells in Timothy. It is not a characteristic. It is not an attribute. Characteristics do not “indwell” a person. Attributes do not “indwell” a person, but God does, and that is what we see when we look up this particular word. Look it up in the concordance. It is used only five times. It is used once here, and it is also used a second time in 2Timothy 1:14:

That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.

It is just like the “mutual faith” of “both you and me.” The Holy Ghost is a Person who dwells in us, the elect people of God.

This is how we come to learn truth in the Bible. You jot something like this down. The word “dwelt” is a word that has to do with the Holy Spirit indwelling a person.

Now let us look at the other three times it is used. Let us go to Romans 8:9:

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

Now this word “dwell” is not the same word, but we see here a reference to the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. They are synonymous. They are one and the same because Christ is God.

Let us continue in Romans 8:10-11:

And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

The word “dwelleth” in verse 12 is our word, where it says, “by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” It is Strong’s #1774. The other reference to “dwell” is a different Greek word, Strong’s #3611. But, again, the important point is that it is His Spirit that dwelleth in you.

So that is two times it is used in this context. If you have your note paper, and you are looking at Strong’s #1774, note that in 2Timothy 1:14 it said the Holy Ghost indwells us. In Romans 8:11, it said the Spirit of Christ or the Spirit of God indwells us. So that is the second time.

Now go to 2Corinthians 6:16:

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Who will dwell in them? God. That is exactly the same as 2Timothy 1:14 and Romans 8:11. God’s Spirit dwells in His people. That is three times out of five.

Remember, we are looking at 1Timothy 1:5 regarding “the faith” that dwelt in Timothy, his grandmother and his mother. Was it some sort of trait or characteristic? No. When you look up the word, it is the Spirit of God.

Now let us look at the fourth time it is used, in Colossians 3:16:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom…

This is the word of Christ, and Christ is the Word. The Word of God, the Bible, is as closely linked and identified with God as anything could be. “Thy word is truth.” Christ is truth. What is true of Christ is true of the Word: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you,” and, again, that is God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who dwells within His people: “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee,” and that is because the Word is Jesus. That is the only way we can understand that, because there are all kinds of people that memorize Scripture and, yet, it did not prevent them from sinning against God. But the Word, who is Jesus, is the hidden man of the heart, as we read in 1Peter, and that is a whole different story – that is eternal God Himself.

I just wanted to make sure we got this point clearly, and you can see the significance of that word “dwelt,” as it said in 2Timothy 1:5:

… the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.

That helps us in understanding that “the faith” is another name for Jesus. He is “the faith” that indwells His people. This is why “without faith,” it is impossible to please Him. We have to have Christ. Without Christ, it is impossible to please God – it cannot be done.

Let us go back to Romans 1, and we will move on to Romans 1:13:

Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.

You know, I am really enjoying going through these verses and looking up these words. I have read Romans 1 many times before, but without doing this kind of verse-by-verse study, and “verse by verse” means “word by word.” You cannot get the full meaning of what God is saying without doing this. Oftentimes, we look at the “big picture” or the main point, and in Romans 1 there are several major points. We are about to get to that part, but in the introduction of the opening Scriptures, it is easy to just quickly go through them and quickly pass them by. But I am seeing (and I hope you are, too) that God has packed these verses full of important truths. We should not be surprised by that because the Bible says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

Here, again, it says in Romans 1:13:

Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren…

The word “ignorant” has the Greek alpha prefix that negates it, so it is the word “understand” or “know” with the negative prefix “not” or “no,” so it is to “not understand” or to “not know.” That would be the literal meaning of it, and if you do not understand or know something, you are ignorant of it. That is what “ignorant” means. It means to lack understanding. (There is also “willful ignorance,” which we will not get into.) In general, to be ignorant means that a person lacks understanding of a particular thing. It can be true of one of God’s elect or someone that is not one of God’s elect, an unsaved person. It says in Mark 9:31-32:

For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him.

The translation “understood not” is the same Greek word “ignorant.” They were ignorant of that saying, and were afraid to ask him. They had no understanding of what he was saying – they did not get it.

We are all familiar with “not getting” something in the Bible, are we not? We have all read passages (and even whole chapters) and we have not gotten the important spiritual understanding of why God wrote it. We do not know what it means. And, here, the disciples did not know what Christ was talking about when He was telling them rather plainly that He would be delivered into the hands of men and be killed and, afterwards, He would rise the third day. What does that mean? If he was going to be killed, how could He rise up?

Of course, we look back on these things and we are familiar with it because in the church age and the New Testament era the resurrection was a very familiar teaching and something that was widely known in the entire world because Christ rose from the dead.

But this was before all that, so we have to understand their lack of understanding because we, also, have thought we knew some things, but at the time of the end, God opened up the Scriptures to reveal the actual teaching of His Word regarding certain matters like “hell.” For example, I thought (and I am sure many of you thought) for most of my life when I was under the hearing of the Bible and going to church and even outside of the church, I thought Jesus paid for sins at the cross. I thought that, but I did not understand it. So I believed it in an ignorant way. I really had no actual understanding of it until we got the point when God blessed Mr. Camping with a proper understanding, and he began to teach it. And there it was. I think many of us are accustomed to that kind of moment when we have a sort of awakening to the truth, and we see it for the first time. Now we get it and now we understand it, and that is when ignorance flees away.

That is what this word is pointing to, and it is also used in 2Peter 2:12:

But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

They are professed Christians and they hear things about the end of the church age (and this was something else I was ignorant of for a time.). They hear it and the speak evil of it because they understand it not. They do not get it. They do not understand these things about fleeing Judaea and the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy Place and then the need to flee to the mountains. They do not get it – they are ignorant of it, just as the elect could be ignorant of a teaching for a period of time. But when God opened it up and begins to reveal it, then understanding begins to follow.

For the two disciples that did not understand what Jesus was saying about rising on the third day, they came to know it very well. So, too, do God’s people understand His mysteries. That is what we understand from Romans 11, where we find this word used again, in Romans 11:25:

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

Here it refers to the Gospel going forth, but Israel as a nation would be blind until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. Then it says in the next verse in Romans 11:26:

And so all Israel shall be saved…

Or, “in this manner,” all Israel shall be saved; that is, the Gentiles coming in is the completion of the salvation of all Israel because they are part of spiritual Israel. This is all part of the mystery that God moved Paul to write to the brethren: “…brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery.” It is the mysterious teaching or the parabolic teaching of the Bible. It is hidden truth in the Bible, and it is hidden in parables or hidden in ways that seemed very unclear, such as Christ having paid for sins at the foundation of the world, and not at the cross. God hid that truth until a certain time. Actually, we also read in 1Corinthians 10:1:

Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant…

You see, it is similar language to Romans 11:25. Then it goes on to say in 1Corinthians 10:1:

…. how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

Here, the reference is being made to the Law of Moses, the Pentateuch: the books of Exodus, Numbers and the accounts of Israel coming out of Egypt and dwelling in the wilderness. And nowhere do we read there of spiritual meat, spiritual food, or a spiritual rock. It is being interpreted her for us as a mystery that the brethren should not be ignorant of. In other words, “Do not fail to understand this.” You must get this correct because God is instructing the reader of the Bible how to understand the Bible itself, and that understanding comes when we realize that Christ spoke in parables, and without a parable He did not speak. And He is the Word. Therefore, the entire Word of God, from the first five books of the Bible and throughout the rest of the books of the Bible are the Words of Christ, and He spoke in parables. And a parable is that which serves to hide truth. Therefore, you are not to be ignorant. You are not to fail to know these things. You must comprehend them because God has given us of His Spirit, and through His Spirit He will direct us into all truth. He will guide us into all truth. He gave us the methodology for coming to truth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. The Law is truth, whether it be Genesis, Exodus, Numbers or Deuteronomy or any of the sixty-six books. They are all the Law. They are all spiritual. When we compare spiritual with spiritual, the Holy Ghost teacheth. The Holy Ghost is a Spirit, and He will instruct His people that are born again in the spirit, and they will receive them. But the natural man cannot. He has no spiritual life within, and that is why he is a natural man.

When we read here in Romans 1:13: “Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren,” he is giving us a sort of forewarning that what he is going to say should be understood spiritually, and you have to look for the spiritual meaning. By God’s grace, we have already been doing this regarding the “prosperous journey to come unto you,” and his longing to see them to impart some spiritual gift. We have understood, by God’s grace, that Paul is a pattern of the believers; and his going to Rome meant coming out of Judaea on a ship that became shipwrecked and ended in Rome, representing the elect believers at the time of the end that left the churches and went out into the world, and there in the world would be the Latter Rain during the time of the Great Tribulation. And there would be the great multitude that God would save, and they would be the fruit that the Latter Rain would produce.

So is it not interesting that it says here in Romans 1:13:

Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,)…

The word “let” is a word that means “forbidden” or “hindered” or “withstood.” There was something or someone keeping him from coming to them. Then it goes on to say in Romans 1:13:

… that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.

Or, “even as among other nations,” as the word “Gentiles” can be translated as “nations.”

Now we can see why the opening statement, “I would not have you ignorant,” which identifies with looking for solutions to the mysteries and parabolic meanings. He had purpose to come, but he could not come because someone was forbidding. There was hinderance to his coming. But we know that God had a plan to bring the Gospel to the nations or the world, as the Romans identified with, but it could not be done any just any time – it had to be done at the very end. And there was no way God could have saved that great multitude out of Great Tribulation until everything had been worked out for the 1,955 years of the church age, until the first part of the Great Tribulation (the 2,300 evening mornings) had passed. You see, there were obstacles in the way. There was the manner of doing it in its proper time and season, so he was let hither to that he might have some fruit among them.

But now he had come to Rome, and we saw in the book of Acts that he had his own hired house, and he was preaching and teaching, “no man forbidding.” He had been hindered in coming until that point, but once he got there, there was no more hindering of Paul or of the elect out in the world.