Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The alliance of confessing evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Some Christians who have truly left the city of death to enter upon the road of life and who are saved, nevertheless seem to carry such a baggage of death with them that at times we can wonder whether such have really been saved. We must stop and consider that perhaps some might wonder about us and we must show by our diligence in seeking God's glory, God's honor, that we truly are possessed by divine life and that we are seeking the eternal things.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse, then pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio outreach 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 will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled Patient Continuance in Well Doing. If you drove onto Route 80 at New York City, you would not immediately find yourself in San Francisco.

You have gotten on the right road, but you still have a long way to go to reach the West Coast. Trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation is the necessary first step on the road to eternal glory, but the Christian journey is a life of patiently and diligently walking in the good works that God has prepared beforehand for his people. The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter two and verses six through 10. Here again is Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse with a message entitled Patient Continuance in Well Doing.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We thank thee for thy word, so searching, so enlightening. We pray thee that it may be mixed with faith in those that hear it, lest it be heard with condemnation. We can speak words to men's ears, but thou alone canst take the words to the hearts of men. Speak, we ask thee our God, in the name and for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. We have come in our study of the second chapter of Romans to the third of the principles of the judgment of God upon the impenitent and hard-hearted unbelievers.

We have seen that his judgment will be according to truth and that it will be in proportion to the mercy that has been flouted and denied by men who are treasuring up for themselves a store of wrath which they shall harvest in the day of judgment. We now proceed to the third principle of judgment, namely that it will be according to works. It is necessary immediately to brush aside a great error that has arisen around this passage. There have been those who have sought to show that God is going to find some merit in the works of man and that there will be a credit balance for salvation acquired by the deeds of individuals which will be accounted in their favor when the day of reckoning comes.

To accept such a false idea is to deny the whole current of scripture. Calvin pointed out in his commentary that it is an absurd inference to deduce merit from reward. In ordinary life, great rewards are often garnered by the most undeserving. It is impossible to deduce merit from reward. And when we read a text like the one that lies before us in Romans two, we may not negate the rest of the Bible by attempting to force it to teach salvation by works. Verses six, seven, and 10 describe the true Christian and verses eight and nine describe the non-Christian.

In this and the next study, we shall hope to set forth the principles governing the judgment of the works of the two groups. We read that God will render to every man according to his deeds to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also to the Gentile. But glory, honor and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.

What is in view in our passage is the expression of one more of the great principles of the divine judgment. Mankind is divided into two classes, those who obey God and those who refuse to be submitted to him. It is a sharp cleavage across all of humanity. It is not a division based on the ignorance of man, but on the truth and perfection of God. In the days of discovery and exploration of the new world, a map was taken before the Pope to settle a claim between the Spanish and the Portuguese, thinking that the American continents lay much closer to the old world than they really do.

The Pope chose a line 100 leagues West of the Isles, the Cape Verde Isles, and said that everything West of the line would belong to Spain and everything East to Portugal. That line of demarcation was far from the center of the land mass. But it and the subsequent divisions explain why the tip of South America speaks Portuguese and why the rest of the continent speaks Spanish. Now God's line of demarcation is just as sharp, but it is drawn at the cross of Jesus Christ. On one side, there is a group that is characterized here in our text as seekers after glory, honor, and incorruption.

To them, at the end of their persevering pursuit of well doing, there shall come the glory of the eternal reward. On the other side is the rest of humanity. They may be subdivided into evil unbelievers and not so evil unbelievers, but the result is the same. They shall come into the condemnation of God's just wrath which shall be exercised according to truth and righteousness against those who know him not and who obey not the gospel of his son. We see then that the division between men is not on the basis of the human works which the adamic nature produces, but the division is between life and death, life being achieved through Christ and producing a manner of life characterized by the pursuit of well doing, death being the natural state of all in which men remain if they do not believe God's word about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now at the present moment, we must not anticipate the exposition of chapters three, four, and five of the epistle to the Romans. But no more must we rip our text out of its context and force it to deny the rest of the epistle. We shall come in our studies, the Lord willing, to the passages that show that the way of entrance to the path of patient continuance in well doing is through the gate of the new birth on the grounds of the atoning death of the Savior. We shall also come to the astounding verse in the fourth chapter which says, to him that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted unto him for righteousness.

So let us not fall into the easy snare of surface reading and root denial which entraps so many casual Bible readers who are not willing to give themselves to the spirit of the book and the methods that are set forth for its study. And let not anyone rise to repeat the old wheeze, oh you can prove anything by the Bible. To say such a thing is to be guilty of the most arrant nonsense. It is the equivalent of saying that you can prove anything by the dictionary. Well, you can prove anything by the dictionary if you violate the principles of the dictionary.

Let me take Webster and turn to the second letter of the alphabet. There I find b l a c k black. I repeat the process on the word is i s and again on the word white w h i t e white. Then I put them together. Black is white. I have the authority of the dictionary. I found it there, but you cry out that I have outrageously violated the method and the principles that underlie lexicons and dictionaries. They are to be used only within the limits of their purpose. It is not permissible to make a mockery of the dictionary by distorting its usage and violating its principles.

So it is with the word of God. It is not possible to prove just anything by the Bible. Prove to me that God loves sin. Prove from the Bible that the unbeliever has even the slimmest chance of escaping the judgment of God. You cannot prove such things from the word of God which is the story of man's complete ruin in sin and God's perfect remedy in Christ. Now in dealing with this text in the second chapter of Romans, it's necessary to understand the various jurisdictions of God in his judgment of different classes of his creatures.

Many people have the idea totally erroneous that there is someday going to be one general judgment in which everyone from Adam to the last man shall be brought before God, divided into two groups and sent to heaven or to hell. Such an idea arises from the confusion of surface reading and root error that holds so many. Suppose you met a man stupid enough to tell you that he was going down to court to listen to a trial and that the case involved counterfeiting, murder, arson, embezzlement, and parking a car by a fire plug. You ask him where the trial is to be held and he answers that it is at the federal, state, county, municipal police court.

You ask him if he's not just a little confused and that perhaps he has a whole series of trials and jurisdictions confused. He answers moronically, oh is there more than one trial? Now such is the spiritual ignorance of the man who confuses the judgments in the Bible which are so carefully separated by God as to time, place, and procedure as to who is judged and what is the sentence after conviction. Whenever we come to a passage in the Bible dealing with judgment, we must always ask the questions, when, where, how, who, and what. I recently had a letter from a man who had heard me preaching in a meeting and who had taken offense at something I had said.

He wrote me that after all, the judgment principles were clearly described in Matthew 25 and that the Lord would divide the sheep and the goats on the basis of how they had lived. Well, while it's true and our text teaches it that there is a definite cleavage between the saved and the lost and that this cleavage is manifested by the method of life of those who seek for glory, honor, and incorruption and those who obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness. It is not true that all are going to be judged at the same moment.

The judgment scene of the 25th chapter of Matthew is revealed to be, if we ask who is judged, to be a judgment of nations. The time is when the Lord Jesus returns to this earth. The place is at his judgment seat erected on this earth. The basis of the judgment is as to how the nations have treated the Jews, especially those of the great tribulation period. The sentence is national. How different from the judgment scene of the great white throne described in the last book in the Bible where the heaven and the earth have fled away, where the dead, spiritually dead, are judged, dead souls.

And where the judgment is individual. And how different from the judgment seat of Christ where believers will be judged as to the nature of their works after they have accepted Christ as their Savior. When Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ in second Corinthians 5:10, he used an entirely different word to describe it. He did not call it the throne, thronos, but the bench, the bema. And no one but believers appear before the judgment bench, the judgment seat of Christ. The basis of that judgment has to do with rewards for the manner of life after one has been born again.

Yes, there are two classes of people characterized by two modes of life and the judgment of God will be in accordance with truth and on the basis of those two modes of life which stem from the cross. The moment that the truth of God is declared, it divides men. It does it by bringing out one group into the truth of God and revealing that the others remain as they always have been. You are either the servant of truth or the foe of truth. It is impossible to be neutral toward the divine revelation. Christ declared, he that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

Now in spite of appearances, we may boldly say that every individual who has been born again must thereby be in the class of those who are doing good, who are seekers of glory and honor and incorruption. If this be not the case, it is inevitable that the individual is not a believer in the Bible sense at all. There is therefore no uncertainty as to the inclusion of every one of the saints, for that is what the Bible calls the believers in the class of seekers after glory, honor and incorruption. The later chapters will show that the individual is brought into that class not by human efforts, but by divine grace.

It is by the creation within us of the divine nature that we become essentially the doers of good and the seekers after glory. The good that the Christian does is not the cause of his going to heaven, but is the proof of the existence within him of the life which God communicates through Christ. If it be asked if I am teaching that only those who are perfect are truly saved, it should go without saying that I'm not teaching anything of the kind. I recognize clearly that the Bible teaches and that experience illustrates the fact that many Christians are carnal, stumbling in their walk, but that does not invalidate the truth of this text.

Let us illustrate it in the following manner. Suppose you have a large population living along the coast inside of the ocean. Suppose that it is necessary to tell them all to flee into the center of the continent to avoid the effects of contamination with atomic radiation. Immediately there is a division within the population. Numbers flee into the interior. Some go much farther than others. Some go a little way and stay on the hilltops inside of the shore, but they have left the scene of the danger and entered on the way of escape. Those who remain may be divided into the class of those who are horribly burned by the atomic explosion and those who seem to be all right, but who have the effects of the radiation that will produce dread results later.

Thus it is with the people of this world in relation to the gospel of Christ. All are ordered to flee the plains of death by way of Jesus Christ and to continue on the pilgrim's progress toward the celestial city. Some remain behind and are guilty of the most open vice and degradation. The sin burns have been made manifest in them. Others remain behind and boast of the fact that the cancerous effects have not appeared in their lives. They are seemingly righteous, though they have death within them and know it not. Those who have fled have received immunity forever from the destructive power of sin which was canceled out in Christ.

It is impossible for those who have passed through Christ to be brought into judgment for the guilt of their sinful nature. By their belief in Christ, they show that they have obeyed God's command to flee from the wrath to come and have entered on the path of patient continuance in well doing and thereby have declared themselves to be seekers after glory, honor, and incorruption. The reward that lies at the end of that path is eternal life which is called glory, honor, and peace. It should be thoroughly understood that there are many who seem to be seeking after righteousness who are not truly seeking after glory, honor, and incorruption.

The glory that we are to seek after is the glory of God and not the glory of man. In the old Westminster Catechism, the first question asks, what is the chief end of man? And the answer given is, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. No man is seeking the glory of God who has not begun by glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ by making him Savior and Lord of the life. When that has been done, the daily course of life may follow a thousand patterns. But God sees the heart and knows the ones that are truly seeking his glory.

Newell sets forth a list of various patterns of well doing found in the Bible. To Abel, well doing meant approaching God by a sacrifice as a sinner as he had been taught to do. To Noah, continuance in well doing meant building an ark to save his house and preserve life upon the earth, involving years of labor and the ridicule of men. To Abraham, it meant leaving his country, his relatives, and his father's house and becoming a stranger and pilgrim on earth. To Job, it meant his God fearing, evil rejecting life. And afterwards in the midst of his great affliction, bowing before the presence of God in dust and ashes.

To Matthew the publican, it meant rising from his business and following the Lord Jesus. To Cornelius the centurion, a life of patient prayer and generosity and then believing the gospel at Peter's lips. To Lydia, it meant humble and faithful attendance at the place of prayer till Paul came and her heart was opened to give heed to the gospel of grace spoken by the apostle, whence followed her obedience of faith. In every age since man sinned, there have been those like Jabez who was more honorable than his brethren and called upon God. And like Joseph who was separate from his brethren, there always have been choosers of God and rejecters of God.

We can think God that the judgment is with him. Finally, the nature of the reward should be seen by the contrast between the things that the believer is seeking and the things which God gives him in reward. In verse seven, the believer seeks glory, honor, and incorruption. In verse nine, the reward announced is that he receives glory, honor, and peace. He receives glory for glory, honor for honor, but peace for incorruption. Now we believe that these can be understood only when it is realized that they are not the same glory, not the same honor, and not the same incorruption.

The glory that we seek should be the glory of God, must be. What happens to us is of no consequence if only the father be glorified. But when the day of earthly life is over, the father gives us glory, a glory that shall be upon us. We have sought unselfishly the glory of another. We receive the glory of Christ. Peter tells us in his first epistle that God raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead and gave him glory. And Christ has told us what he has done with that glory. For on the last evening of his life in the garden of Gethsemane, he says, and the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them.

Now the honor which the believer seeks here below is not honor for himself. The whole scripture is the story of the company of men who have turned away from earthly honors and count them as refuse for Christ's sake. Christ said, I receive not honor from men. How can you believe which receive honor one of another and seek not the honor that cometh from God only? He further declared that the father had given him the exalted position of judgment in order that all men should honor him even as they honor the father. The mark of the true believer is that he puts Jesus Christ with God the father and honors him in his oneness with the father.

The true Christian cannot give a position to God the father superior to that which they give to God the son. And when we have thus sought to honor the son, we read in our text that it shall come back upon us, for the Lord will place beside himself those who thus honor the Lord Jesus. Finally, for the incorruption which the believer seeks, he shall receive peace. The believer can and does have peace in his heart, but not in his life. He has been promised tribulation in this world because he seeks incorruption. Let me illustrate this.

Several years ago in a meeting of ministers, I was accused of violating my ordination vow because I fought hard against the doctrinal corruption which pervades the denomination of which I am a member. I denied that my contending for the faith was a denial of my vow of ordination. One minister said, but did you not bow to uphold the peace of the church? I replied with a sharp and vigorous, no I did not. I replied that the wording of the vow was that I would seek to uphold the peace, the unity, and the purity of the church.

And that there were times when the peace and the purity were in conflict. Some men are willing to have peace without purity, but I would rather have purity even if there were no peace left among men. And it is purity that we seek. It is the seeking after purity that characterizes the true believer. The King James version translates it immortality. The revisers correct this to incorruption. We already possess immortality and we do not need to seek it, but we must seek incorruption, purity of doctrine, purity of life. We must seek this purity. And in the day that the reward is given, there will be glory for glory, honor for honor, and peace for the incorruption.

For we shall have entered into his holiness and that will bring peace forever more. And our father and our God, we pray thee that thou shalt speak to hearts in this day. If there are those who have not been born again, give them restlessness that they may know no rest until they rest in Christ. But on all of those who have entered into life in Christ, may thy grace, mercy, and peace abide. And to thee be all the glory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Guest (Male): Do not become weary in doing the work of the Lord. If you patiently continue walking in obedience to his commands, you will receive a joyful welcome into the kingdom of God. We hope you've benefited from today's message by Dr. Barnhouse entitled Patient Continuance in Well Doing. You can listen to additional Bible teaching by the late Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse anytime, anywhere around the globe via the Internet by visiting the alliance of confessing evangelicals website 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 Patient Continuance in Well Doing or simply request message number R2-4.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of Dr. Barnhouse's booklet entitled Promises to Live By. We have all been disappointed by people who have let us down or have not kept their word to us, but God is always faithful to his word and to his promises. In this free booklet, Dr. Barnhouse shares glorious and unshakable promises from the word of God that will give you strength in any situation in life. Living by the shaky principles of the world will lead to confusion and despair. 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. The alliance of confessing evangelicals 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 materials which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of our listeners. If you have benefited from this 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 support and further our work, contact us by writing alliance of confessing evangelicals, box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Call toll free, 1-800-488-1888 or visit us online at www.alliancenet.org. Be sure and ask for a free updated resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, daily devotionals, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reform teachers and theologians including Donald Gray Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Michael Horton, and Martin Lloyd Jones. Then be sure and join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.