To follow along, visit your local Christian bookstore, and ask for the Bible Expositor and Illuminator

Time: A.D. 56       Place: From Corinth

Lesson Outline:  I. God Provided Salvation – Roman 5:6-11 – II. God Protects The Relationship – Romans 8:31-39

Lesson Outline I. God Provided Salvation

Romans has been called the “The Constitution of Christianity”, “The Cathedral of Christian Faith. It is noteworthy for being the complete compendium of Christian doctrine. The Epistle of Romans was written between A.D. 56 and 58 from Corinth during Paul’s third missionary journey. The church at Rome was most likely founded by converts of Peter’s ministry at Pentecost or Paul’s ministry. The church was primarily made up of Gentiles and had a very little central organization or local government. Small groups of believers met all over the city this is the reason that the Epistle is not addressed to the “church” at Roman but to the “saints”. Apostle Paul had three objectives in writing this Epistle (1) to teach the the fundamental doctrine of salvation in order to fortify them against the Judaizer (2) to explain the unbelief of Israel and vindicate the faithfulness of God in His dealings with Israel and (3) to give practical instructions concerning Christian living in the society of his day.

Romans 5:6 – For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Chapter 5 writing is the justification of our salvation and how sin came about through Adam but salvation came through Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul describes the fountain and foundation of justification, laid in the death of the Lord Jesus. When we were without strength, in a sad condition; altogether unable to help ourselves, not knowing we were living in sin, unable to help ourselves. God loved us so much He sent His Son to die for us. God loves us just the way we are but He loves us too much to leave us the way we were so Jesus came to die for the ungodly. God did what He did at exactly the right time, we did nothing to aid His work or timing.

Romans 5:7  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. By nature, we tend to do everything we can to stay alive and are reluctant to give our lives for someone else, but there are those who forsake their lives to save someone else from death. For a good man some would die but for those that are not good no one would step forward for them, but God loved the world for those that are morally good and those who aren’t. Jesus came to save us from our sin all those who would call upon Him and for those who would reject Him.

Romans 5:8 – But God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The provision God made for us is an example and proof of the greatness of His love for us and the love Jesus had for the Father and us. Jesus could have said no to the invitation to Him being the ultimate sacrifice. The word “Commendeth” means to “introduce” or “exhibit”. What God did in providing the substitutionary death of Jesus for us indicates His love for us. While we had no mind to seek Him, He was seeking us, He loved us the way we were, but He loved us too much to leave us as we were.

Romans 5:9 – Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. We who have received Jesus as Lord and Savior have now been declared righteousness (justified). God loved us so much when we were helpless, ungodly enemies, how much more will He love us now that we are His children? “By His blood”, through the death of His Son, Jesus we have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, we have been reconciled meaning our state of alienation from God has been changed; believers are no longer the enemy of God which keeps us from the wrath we would have received.

Romans 5:10 – For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Jesus’ life here is spoken of is not to be understood of his life in the flesh, but His life in heaven. We are reconciled by Jesus’ humbleness to die, we are reconciled by Jesus’s exalted. The dying of Jesus laid the foundation in satisfying for sin and slaying the enmity, but it is the living Jesus that perfects the work. Christ dying was the testator, but Christ living is the executor who pays it. God is no long a terror to us but He has become our joy because of our justification through His Son, Jesus.

Romans 5:11 – And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. God is holy and He will not be associated with sin. All people are sinful, and all sin deserves punishment, instead of punishing us with the death we deserve, however, Jesus took our sins upon Himself and paid the price for them with His own death. Now we can “joy in God” through faith in his work, we become His friends rather than enemies and outcasts. Atonement the original English word meant the “the quality of being at one with. Later it came to refer to a human reunion with God through Jesus Christ. The Hebrew and Greek terms designate the manner in which Christ puts the sinner in the right relationship with God.  Old Testament atonement was made through the substitutionary sacrifice of an animal. Sometimes it could be accomplished through loyalty and faithfulness and payment of money. New Testament links atonement to Christ, His dying for our sins to pay the price for human sins rather than the results of them.

Lesson Outline:  II. God Protects the Relationship – Romans 8:31-39

Romans 8:31 –  What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?  What should we say, He has predestinated those who He has called, and who He called He has justified and who He has justified He has glorified. God has done everything from foreknowledge to glorification for us, all adversaries are powerless. Foreknowledge speaks of God’s awareness of the actual potential future. Seventeenth-century Dutch pastor Jacobus Arminius, understand foreknowledge to mean God’s  knowledge in advance of those who would repent of their sins and believe the gospel. In other words, in eternity past, God looked down the corridors of time to see all who would one day accept the offer of salvation through Christ. In the Arminian view, those who accept salvation are the elect. The fact that they would eventually believe in Christ was the condition that prompted God to choose them “before the foundation of the world” or predestine them to eternal life. This belief sounds more practical for God than the thought that God chose some for salvation and others for damnation that would be out of His Godly and Holy character. According to the Word in Romans 2:11 For there is no respect of person with God, God’s Word is not a draft, He doesn’t revise it. It’s the same today, yesterday and forever.

Romans 8:32 – He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?  Since God has done the greatest thing by giving His only begotten Son, will He not also freely give us all things? Can it be imagined that He should give so great a gift for us when we were enemies, Jesus didn’t come after we received salvation, He came to die for our sins while we were the enemy of God and should deny us any good thing, now that we are friends and children? God will give us what’s good for us rather than giving us what we think is good for us.

Romans 8:33 – Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Our justification is God’s eternal program, He’s the Supreme Judge, He justifies then who is going to successfully bring a charge against us? Although some may be willing and ready to condemn us they can’t make good the charge but we have a plea ready that cannot be overruled by the just Judge.

Romans 8:34 – Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.  Who can bring any sustainable accusation against those who belong to God? Since Jesus Christ has fully justified us and is presently interceding for us then no one can possibly condemn us. Jesus is on the right hand of God making intercession for us twenty-four, twenty-four.

Romans 8:35 – Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? If no one can successfully oppose us, charge us or condemn us with regard to our personal relationship with God, then it follows that no one can separate us from Christ’s love for us. The list in this verse covers the full range of experience that could seem to pose a challenge to the reality of Christ’s love. The inability of all these things to separate us from the love of Christ, all this will not cut the bond of love and friendship that is between Jesus and the true believer.

Romans 8:36 – As it written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Those who love God have always had to face death daily (All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant – Psalm 44:17). (For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh – 2nd Corinthians 4:11). Despite all that the people in those days faced they knew where to turn, we too can cry out to Him with confidence.

Romans 8:37 – Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. The trials and difficulties listed in verse 35 not only do not separate us from Christ’s love they make us more than conquerors by forcing us to depend even more on God. We must never forget the Cross of Jesus is proof of His love for us, our ultimate victory is a sure thing and we must do all we can to live victoriously while we remain in this evil world. As believers, we must have a consistent prayer life coupled with fasting to be able to live in the Spirit and not to fulfill the desires of the flesh.

Romans 8:38 – For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. Absolutely nothing can separate believers from God’s love. Nothing hard or dangerous, neither death nor life can separate us. When we die we die in Christ when we live we’re living through the Holy Spirit in constant connection with God. If God, the uncreated One, is for us, then no created thing can separate us, our security in Him is absolute.

Romans 8:39 – Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God’s love is for eternity, it doesn’t diminish, it’s not altered by any supernatural being such as good or evil angels. Demons would be among those who would try to separate us by charging us with sin. When Christians don’t resist the evil influences, Satan imps immediately tells Satan and Satan, in turn, accuses us before God. We have been admonished to resist the devil and he will flee and it also goes for his co-host. God has provided salvation through His Son, and those who receive it, He protects the relationship.