Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: This is, in a large sense, the paraphrase of our text. I am come to the people who trust in the law of Moses, which I gave to them. They grasp at the letter of the law but refuse me who gave them the law. But I'm here as their servant to show them God's truthfulness and to confirm all the promises given to them.

God had promised His people that there would be a prophet like unto Moses and that everyone would be judged by the words of this prophet. Moses said, as we read in Deuteronomy, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not give heed to my words, which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

And now our text is saying that prophet has come. He, the Son and the Servant of the Father, has become the servant of His people, in order to manifest the integrity, the truthfulness of God, and to confirm all the promises that were given in former times.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry, which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago.

The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled Israel's Greatest Teacher. Nicodemus was a member of the Pharisees, a group of religious leaders who were respected throughout Israel for their perceived holiness of life and spiritual understanding. Yet Nicodemus was so baffled by the teachings of Jesus that the Lord told him, "You are Israel's teacher and you do not understand these things." Israel's greatest teacher was and still is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Do you trust in Him as Lord and Savior and obey His teachings?

The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 15 and verse 8. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, Israel's Greatest Teacher.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto Thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We're in a world where hatreds divide men because men have become separated from Thee. But we're in a world where Christ has died, in order that we might be brought back into relationship with Thee, and so into proper relationship with each other.

Show us our need in this hour, and bless the truth to each listening heart. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We study today in the 15th chapter of Romans and the 8th verse, for I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs.

The church at Rome was founded within a few weeks of the day of Pentecost. In the city of Jerusalem, at the time of the coming of the Holy Spirit, there were both Jews and Gentiles who came to believe on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Many of these were from Rome, as we read in the book of the Acts, and we have every reason to believe that after these returned to their homes in the capital of the Empire, they met to praise God and to break bread and drink the wine of communion on the first Lord's Day in which they were back in the city.

And thus, we see that the church in Rome was founded by laymen without benefit or need of clergy. To this group, the Epistle to the Romans was addressed. The special paragraph addressed to the believers in Christ, who were former Israelites, emphasizes this fact and gives purpose to all that follows.

It would appear that racial differences rose within the church from the earliest days. So the present section of the Epistle was written to combat these differences. We know from the book of the Acts that there were such difficulties. We read in the passage that explains why deacons were first chosen. Now, in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.

Now there are many reasons for racial differences. Some of them are economic. In Indonesia and Southeast Asia, there are great jealousies against the Chinese because they have slowly gathered most of the business into their control. They came out of Canton into the warmer climates, using their astute and energetic minds in a world of tropical indolence, and soon dominated the places of fortune and opportunity. This has made them the objects of envy and jealousy.

The same has been true with the Europeans in the days of colonial expansion. The British entered India, the Dutch went into Indonesia, the French into Indochina. And since they had the resources of the machine-produced articles of commerce, and could dictate prices in a scheme of monopolistic control, they built up the tensions which exist between the haves and the have-nots.

In ancient Rome, there were similar differences, and these were accentuated by the fact that the Jews emphasized the Old Testament rules of diet and all the formalism of the Mosaic Law. All this ran afoul of the freedom that existed in the pagan world. To meet this crisis, and to ease this tension, and to heal the breach between the two sectors of the church, this portion of Romans was written.

The body of Christian believers is to dwell together in a brotherhood that had been unknown in the world until modern times. I'm not talking about any fancied brotherhood of man, for such a doctrine is not in the Bible. But the brotherhood of those who have been redeemed is presented to us as the norm of Christian living and as the ideal that is planned by God for men who have been made new creatures in Christ Jesus, regardless of their background.

In the light of these paragraphs in the Epistle to the Romans, it's incredible to think of division between believing Jews and believing Gentiles. If this principle is accepted, it is impossible to think of any allowable differences between believers, or of any set of conditions or circumstances which may keep believers apart at the communion table or in the public worship of God.

Listen to the testimony of other parts of scripture. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit. And again in another passage, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And again in Ephesians, knowing that whatever good anyone, any believer does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. To those who are saved, made alive in Christ, it is said, "You have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge, after the image of its Creator." Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all.

I shall now proceed to exegete this passage and to give the spiritual exposition of its plain teaching. But let no man think that I'm confining myself to situations that existed 2,000 years ago. Although the Bible was written back in those days, it is the divine book. It's filled with spiritual principles that must be applied to the conditions of our own days.

If you receive the word of God without applying it to your own heart and life, its teaching will be within you like an undigested lump that can even warp your thinking. God help the man who seeks to live in conditions that are unalterably opposed by the word of God, while claiming to hold to that which is truth. For the truth of God was meant to destroy the selfish conditions by which men live in their own little social circle, and move on their own little merry-go-round.

Such men seek to justify their lives by a text or two, in defiance of all the texts, and in defiance of the streaming blood of the Son of God who came to die, that all men should be brought into divine oneness in Him.

The first statement here in this text is that the Lord Jesus Christ came to Israel to show the truthfulness of God, in order that He might confirm the promises that were given to the patriarchs in the Old Testament. And in order to do this, He became a servant to Israel.

Why was it necessary for Jesus Christ to come to show the truthfulness of God? Or in more modern terms, to show God's integrity? Dr. Samuel Johnson said to Boswell, "Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless. And knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." It is only in God that the two, righteousness and knowledge, are found in perfection. And it's only in Christ that these have been revealed where men could see them and touch them.

Man does not have integrity except in a modified human sense. There is no perfection except in God. This creates a problem in the mind of man because he is incapable of understanding it on human terms.

Aldous Huxley complained once of the absolute nature of the divine promises. There is a word which speaks of the ways of divine wisdom. These ways, the Bible says, are ways of pleasantness, and all, note the word, all its paths are peace. Huxley protested somewhat like this, "It's just too much. If it had said 90% of His ways are ways of pleasantness and 90% of His paths are peace, we would be tempted to take a whirl at it." For that's nine chances out of 10, which is very good odds. But when it says, all His paths are peace, we shrug our shoulders and say, "It can't be that good."

But, as a matter of divine fact, God would be a liar if He said that only 90% of His ways lead to peace. For being perfect in the highest mathematical sense of the term, His ways must be perfect also. In the most complete sense, the human race died spiritually when sin entered the world. Man took a position that centered in himself, and alienated himself from the life of God. The result is that man, every man, is wounded to the death. And only God's intervention can save him.

It is necessary, therefore, for each man to recognize his own sinfulness if he is to benefit by what God has done for him. The innermost fabric of the integrity of God includes His utterly true statement that man by himself is incurable. One of the reasons why the Bible has such a hold on the human race is its obvious inner knowledge of what goes on inside our hearts.

It is said that a Hindu, when he first read the terrible first chapter of Romans, nodded grimly and said, "The author of this has traveled in India." In the Bible, man's heart is laid bare. Matthew Arnold wrote, "He took the suffering human race. He read each wound, each weakness clear, and struck his finger on the place and said, Thou ailest here, and here."

Machiavelli wrote, "Whoever takes it upon himself to establish a commonwealth and prescribe laws must presuppose all men naturally bad and that they will yield to their innate evil passions as often as they can do so with safety."

A close study of that sentence from the great Italian writer on statecraft is a a grand illustration of the plan of God as revealed in the Bible. For God did take it upon Himself to establish a commonwealth of true believers in Christ. He did prescribe laws, and He did presuppose that all men are naturally bad, and that they will yield to their innate passions as often as they can do so with safety. But God had the purpose and the plan of producing holiness in men by making them like the Lord Jesus Christ.

In order to reach man, God bound Himself by innumerable promises. And Jesus Christ came to demonstrate the integrity of God in the fulfillment of these promises. In the second place, let us look at some of these promises which are the tests of God's truthfulness, of God's integrity. What did Christ come to confirm?

There are two lines of prophecy in the Old Testament concerning the coming Messiah. The most striking and the most prominent line of prophecy is, of course, that which shows God's Messiah as righting all wrongs, destroying all evil, bringing in everlasting righteousness and blessing all the families of the earth.

These promises to Israel were so desirable, so pleasing, so exciting, so appealing to all of their selfishness that they were the center of all their hope and longing. Their eyes were so filled with the brilliance of these promises that they did not see clearly the nature of the other line of promise which had to be fulfilled before God could bring the triumph and the victories which were so ardently awaited.

For there could never be a crown until there was first the cross. There could never be the glory until there was first the suffering. Most assuredly, it was the second of these lines of prophecy that Paul has in mind here, when he states that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs.

First, there was the promise made to Abraham and confirmed to Isaac, Jacob, and many of their descendants. That the Messiah would come from their line, and that He would make Israel a blessing to all the world, bringing salvation to the Gentiles as well as to the people who had been first chosen. He made it very plain to the woman of Samaria that He was confirming this promise, when He clearly showed the difference between religion founded on human values, and that which was founded on Himself.

At the well of Sychar, the conversation had proceeded to the point where it was revealed that the woman had no spiritual perception. Christ brought her to reality by helping her to uncover the fact that she had lived with several men and that even then she was living with a man who was not her husband. She immediately observed that He was a prophet, and in order to get the probing pressure of conviction away from herself, started a theological argument.

The question concerned the difference between the Samaritans, who said that the blood sacrifices should be offered on their mountain Gerizim, and the Jews, who proclaimed that the sacrifices should be offered at Jerusalem. According to the scriptures, there was no possible compromise. And the Lord Jesus spoke a word that was so devastating to the religion of the Samaritans, and so definite in upholding the revelation made to the Jews, that the incident is a startling demonstration of Christ's confirmation of the promises made to the fathers, and a declaration of the integrity of God.

"Woman," He said to her with sweeping finality, "Woman, you worship, you know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews." Now this word of Jesus Christ may not have been in accordance with the rules that are given for winning friends and influencing people. But it was a manifestation of the integrity of God and a confirmation of the promises.

For back in the 17th of Leviticus, it had been stated that any soul that offered a sacrifice other than at Jerusalem would be cut off from Israel. And Christ confirmed this, and with it, the whole of the prophetic scheme that announced in text and pageant the coming of the Savior to fulfill all that was written and to accomplish the redemption that was to be the expiation of sin.

And thus it is, therefore, that we understand that there is only one way today, even as there was in that day. And we read in the Acts, neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Now time fails us to enter all the evidence here. The family and the line of Christ were announced. The place of His birth was foretold. The manner of His supernatural birth was clearly set forth. The form of His death, with many of the details of His dark hours, were clearly described centuries before He was born. His triumphant resurrection was proclaimed.

There's a great deal of evidence in the Gospels that our Lord was very conscious of His relationship with the Old Testament records. He identified Himself with them in such a manner that it's impossible to disassociate the living word Christ and the written word, the Bible, without doing violence to the deity of Christ and the inspiration of the Bible.

When He first spoke in public, it was a few days after His first miracle in Cana. He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath, and they brought Him the roll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled it until He came to the 61st chapter, although of course there were no chapter divisions until 500 years ago. But unrolling it and reading the prophecy, He declared that it was written about Himself.

We read, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And when He had closed the book, He took the seat of the teacher and proclaimed, "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

When it's remembered that this sentence is the first public utterance of our Lord, and antedating the Sermon on the Mount, it is clear what He was claiming. Theologians have tried to say that Jesus had what they call a dawning Messianic consciousness, and that only gradually did the idea come to Him that He was the Messiah. But this is nonsense in the light of this and other texts.

He opens His ministry with the flat declaration, "I am the object of the Old Testament prophecies." It is the equivalent of a paraphrase of our text in Romans. "I am come to my people Israel as their servant to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs."

Later in His ministry, He pronounced a terrible judgment upon His people. He said in the Gospel of John, "Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. It is Moses who accuses you, on whom you set hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"

Again, this is in a large sense the paraphrase of our text. I am come to the people who trust in the law of Moses, which I gave to them. They grasp at the letter of the law but refuse me, who gave them the law. But I'm here as their servant to show them God's truthfulness, and to confirm all the promises given to them.

God had promised His people that there would be a prophet like unto Moses. And that everyone would be judged by the words of this prophet. Moses said, as we read in Deuteronomy, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not give heed to my words, which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him."

And now our text is saying that prophet has come. He, the Son and the Servant of the Father, has become the servant of His people, in order to manifest the integrity, the truthfulness of God, and to confirm all the promises that were given in former times.

Whenever I think of the circumcised people, I tremble if I remember that they have accepted the circumcision of the body without accepting the circumcision of the lips, the eyes, the ears, and the heart. For the prophets state clearly that circumcision of the body was nothing more than a symbol of God's desire that a people be pure in heart. And this purity of heart can come only through the redemption that was provided by the faithful servant Lord who came to redeem.

His death and resurrection are the manifestation of God's truthfulness and integrity, the seal of all the promises given by God. And they are the guarantee of the eternal judgment of those who refuse the Savior God. And we pray Thee, our God and Father, that in this hour Thou shalt take this message and use it to hearts. Thou hast said of thy word that when it goes forth from Thy mouth, it shall not return unto Thee void.

So give us the quiet restfulness in the sending forth of this word that Thou wilt accomplish Thy purpose through it, and use it to Thy glory. We ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Guest (Male): The Lord Jesus Christ was Israel's greatest teacher of spiritual truth. Today, people from every nation, tribe and tongue can come to Him and receive divine instruction and eternal life. We hope you've benefited from today's message entitled Israel's Greatest Teacher. To listen to additional teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at alliancenet.org.

An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled Israel's Greatest Teacher or simply ask for message number R15-9. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled Promises to Live By. We have all been disappointed by people who have let us down or not kept their word to us. But God is always faithful to His word and to His promises. This free booklet will show you the glorious and unshakable promises from the word of God that will give you strength in any situation in life.

If you want to build your life on the strong, sure foundation of the promises of God, ask for your free copy of Promises to Live By when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

We also produce the radio broadcast, The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a full list of radio stations carrying our programs, visit our website at alliancenet.org. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air.

For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling 1-800-488-1888. That's 1-800-488-1888. Write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at alliancenet.org. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog, featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.