Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Announcer: The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: As Hodge puts it, no Christian considers himself as his own master or at liberty to regulate his conduct according to his own will, or for his own ends. He is the servant of Christ, and therefore endeavors to live according to his will and for his glory.

They therefore, who act on this principle, are to be regarded and treated as true Christians. Although they may differ as to what the will of God in particular cases requires. The sentiment is, we are entirely his, having no authority over our life or our death.

When we know the love of Christ, we may say with John Donne, no man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. When men know that we love them like that, they will lift their eyes from us and look beyond us, seeing Christ.

Announcer: Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey 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 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 The Badge of Christ.

From time to time, you have heard people say, "I'm just looking out for number one." This saying reflects the world's philosophy that we should live for ourselves, fulfill our desires, and do anything to get ahead in life. Believers are also supposed to look out for number one. But the difference is, we have a new number one in our lives, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are now his people and we no longer live or die to ourselves, but we live and die to him and for his glory. The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 14. We're looking at verses 7 and 8. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, with a message entitled, The Badge of Christ.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. Bless thy word as we now study it together, and use it to thy glory. In Jesus' name we ask it, Amen.

Today we resume our studies in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 14, and we come to verse 7 and 8 where we read, "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord."

At the outset, it must be stressed that this passage is not talking about all of humanity, but about believers only. It's necessary to repeat what we have brought forth at an earlier point, that the word man is used in the Old Testament no less than 336 times when referring not to universal man, but to Israel alone.

For the Old Testament writers, the word man very frequently was the exact equivalent of Jewish man. In the New Testament, this same principle continues. The word man often refers not to universal man, but to the Christian believer.

Outstanding examples illustrate our point. Christ is the head of every man, means that Christ is the head of every Christian man. The Spirit is given to every man, means that the Spirit is given to every believer in Christ. If any man build on this foundation, every man's work shall be made manifest, does not refer to the pagan world, which does not have Christ for its foundation, but to the saved alone who have builded their hope on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

Our text must be understood in this framework. None of us believers lives to himself, and none of us believers dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.

The unregenerate man lives to himself. The unregenerate child learns to have his own way by going into a temper tantrum. The unregenerate juvenile delinquent will take whatever he wants, regardless of the ownership of the thing desired. He will organize juvenile gangs that steal and torture, and that will blast the enemy or the innocent bystander with a sawed-off shotgun.

The older criminal will brook no interference with his own way. He wants what he wants when he wants it. Shoplifting in the supermarket has become such a problem that the profits gained by self-service are now more than half eaten up by the thieves, some of whom even train their children to take parcels out through the guard rails.

One commentator states that nobody seems to have found a way to detain the easy conscience that assumes a high standard of living to be everybody's right, whether the money is around or not. There are millions of people in what is loosely known as the Christian world, who are not believers and who live unto themselves.

In the non-Christian world, there are hundreds of millions of people whose chief end is to glorify themselves and to enjoy themselves for as long as possible. And in our world, of course, in addition to those who are gangsters, living for themselves, there are many moral people, who are also living for themselves.

Now, the moment a man is born again, he is re-centered. He once had all things centered in himself, but now, he's moved to a new horizon, and looks around himself from his new position in Christ, the center. The ethical concepts of the New Testament are built on the fact that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.

For an unsaved man to live a Christian life is as impossible as for an automobile to fly. It just doesn't have the wings. It's unfortunately necessary to add at this point, that many Christians do not live the Christian life. They have been given wings, but they're like a plane without oil. Such an airplane will not get as far as a racing car that's in good condition.

The tragedy is that many observers think that movement is the important thing, and they choose the fine racing car, symbol in my illustration of the ethical man without Christ, instead of the wings of a new creation. For God has promised to get every plane off the ground sooner or later.

He who has begun a good work in you will keep on perfecting it until the day of Jesus Christ. The whole of our passage in Romans 14, therefore, is a remarkable call to holy living. We are to recognize the fact that we have been given new life, and that from the moment we have received this asset, we are bound to give an account of it.

The Lord said that everyone to whom much is given, of him will much be required, and of him to whom men commit much, they will demand the more. It would be possible to depart from this text and enter into the realm of sociology, speaking of the interdependence of all members of the human race.

We could quote statistics, showing how the development of the means of intercommunication and travel, have caused our world to shrink, so that the farmer in the Mississippi Valley is now a close neighbor of the man who raises rice in the little valleys of Japan, or the man who follows a herd of yaks on the upland steps of Central Asia.

It may well be that the nations of the world will realize these facts, and will work to fulfill the obligations that come from this worldwide interdependence. It is now a known fact that raising a tariff on a single product in the United States, in order to protect the high wages of working men in the industry that produces that commodity, can practically destroy a town in Japan or Chile.

There is abundant proof of the diminishing mesh of the network of humanity. In our text, the emphasis is in a different direction, and is a much more restricted, yet a much more important teaching. God has planted in the midst of world society a new society of believers, who are related to him by the new birth.

The first thing for each of us is to learn that we are related to God in this fashion. When we know that we are related to God in the new birth, we will begin to recognize that we are related to each other, and that love is the required bond which binds us together.

The world does not know any such relation. If we take one of Haywood's proverbs, and a line from Beaumont and Fletcher, we can sum up the thought of the world, "Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost." The Christian, on the other hand, has an amazing number of quotations from the scriptures to tell him of his relationship with all other believers, and with those who are not believers.

Our Lord set forth this truth as follows, "For whosoever shall save his life shall lose it. And whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."

"Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you also love one another. By this, shall all men know that you're my disciples, if you have love one to another. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Paul was able to testify that he had followed these commands of the Lord Jesus. In the first epistle that he ever wrote, he reminded the Thessalonian Christians, "We were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you, not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us."

And thus he was able to say to these believers, "May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another, that is, to believers, and to all men, that is, to unbelievers, as we do to you."

Peter bore down strongly on this same point. He writes in the first chapter of his first epistle, "Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth, for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart."

And he clinches the matter by saying, "Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not return evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. For to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing."

He returns to the subject again in the following chapter, saying, "Above all, hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another. As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace."

In his closing chapter, the matter is again in his mind, "Likewise, you that are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble."

John had heard the Lord Jesus give his new commandment on the night that he was betrayed. This urge to love is the chain that binds all his epistles together.

"He who says he is in the light and hates his brother, is in the darkness still. He who loves his brother, abides in the light, and in it there is no cause for stumbling." Further, "by this it may be seen who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil."

I cannot pass this verse without noting how definitely God denies the popular modern doctrine that all men are children of God. It is true that all are his creatures, but only those who are alive in Christ have the life of God in them and are the true children of God. And it is love of the brethren which is the touchstone for discerning the reality of this new life.

In the third chapter, John says, "Whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another."

The presence of this love in our hearts is even set forth as the ground of our assurance. "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."

"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." One more quotation from John. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."

"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the expiation, the payment for our sins."

"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." When we come to the later epistles of Paul, especially the prison epistles, we find that this same truth underlies all of the doctrinal and ethical teachings of the great Apostle.

He tells the Colossians that they are to be knit together in love and says, "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience. Forbearing one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive."

"And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body."

To the Philippian church, which had a situation in which two women were quarreling with each other, there are addressed a score of calls to oneness. Some of the tenderest passages in scripture are here, and I cite but one. "So, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility, count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Let this mind be in you, which also was in Christ Jesus."

Now, I've given but a few quotations on this subject. It's safe to say that the whole fabric of the New Testament is woven around the twin truths of Christ's redemptive love for us, and the consequent obligation of our love for him, and for all of the family of God in Christ, and even for all members of the human race. It is all the truth that is revealed in these quotations, which buttress our text, and makes it so very important. "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself."

There may be those who take these truths as self-evident, but it must not be forgotten that they did not exist before Christ, and that they have never existed apart from Christ. There were guilds in the Middle Ages, but the artisans who were bound together were drawn by selfish protective interests. They were not working for the good of the buyer, nor for the good of artisans of another craft. They were for themselves.

There have been lodges which have bound men together, sometimes by terrible oaths of secrecy, and ostensibly they are working for each other, but their aims are self-centered and not spiritual. They have chartered good works and produced many charities, but their examples were pillaged from Christianity, and the works that they have done are always short of that which ministers to the soul and its hunger, the heart and its needs, as well as to the body and its ills.

There are labor unions which have worked valiantly to lift the standard of living of the workers, but it seems they're willing practically to wreck a business and see the owners in bankruptcy. And the dictatorial leaders of some unions seem more interested in privileges than in the public which pays the bills for their own selfish interests. It's under such organized self-interest that unskilled laborers receive higher pay than teachers in our schools, and that the dean of a medical school receives less than some skilled artisans working on his hospital building.

It can readily be seen that there is nothing Christian about such a setup. Such a society has drawn its economics from selfishness, and not from Christian principles. I repeat, the whole idea of love of the brethren, and considering the interests of others even as we consider our own interest, comes from Christ and from Christ alone.

The world that crucified Christ does not want the life that comes from him. And the society in which we live has proved by its every movement that it does not want this man, Christ, to reign over it. All that a believer does, therefore, must be done in the light of the fact that he is living and dying to the Lord.

These words "to the Lord" are the touchstone of all of life for us. When we awaken in the morning, we must govern our first words so that those with whom we live shall know that we are the Lord's, and that we are living in his love. When we open our mouths to speak, we must remember that our words are spoken out of the abundance of our hearts.

When we deal with our closest loved ones, each word must be spoken in love, and their interests must be considered even above our own. Love can have it no other way. Love wants to see the beloved satisfied and joyful. When we deal with employees or tradesmen, or fellow workers, with friends or acquaintances or strangers, we must deal in love.

When we drive our cars, we must in honor prefer one another. No man can drive unto himself any more than he can live unto himself. Personally, I have to think even further in this matter. I am constantly in my study, preparing messages which will be broadcast throughout the land or printed in our magazine.

I must consider the needs of the Lord's lambs, and feed them. I must remember to speak the truth in love. I must not forbear to tell truth for fear of hurting the wolves, if I am to protect the lambs of the flock. Everything that is done or left undone, is considered in the light of the fact that all must be to the Lord.

Finally, we must not forget to place all that we have seen in this study, in the larger context of the whole chapter. All that is said here is a subhead under the major premise that believers are to receive each other, and not to argue about minor points, and not to judge one another. We are one in Christ.

This is why we do not live to ourselves, and this is why we do not die to ourselves. The fact that all believers belong to the Lord, makes it possible for us to tolerate differences of doctrine and practice, so long as there is no disobedience, denial, or compromise with the essential word of God. All who accept the central truths of Christ in his person and his work, are to be regarded as His.

We are not our own masters. As Hodge puts it, no Christian considers himself as his own master, or at liberty to regulate his conduct according to his own will, or for his own ends. He is the servant of Christ, and therefore endeavors to live according to his will and for his glory.

They therefore, who act on this principle, are to be regarded and treated as true Christians. Although they may differ as to what the will of God in particular cases requires. The sentiment is, we are entirely his, having no authority over our life or our death.

When we know the love of Christ, we may say with John Donne, no man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

When men know that we love them like that, they will lift their eyes from us and look beyond us, seeing Christ. And our God and Father, we praise thee for thy great faithfulness and thy love. Build us in Christ, that we may know thee better and love thee more. We ask it with all glory to thee through our Savior Christ. Amen.

Announcer: We now belong to the Lord, and we no longer live or die to ourselves. We have been purchased by his precious blood, and whether we live or die, we live or die to our Lord and Savior. We hope you've benefited from today's message entitled The Badge of Christ.

To listen to more 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 The Badge of Christ, or simply request message number R14-10.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled Happy Though Poor. Jesus prayed that his disciples would know the fullness of his joy. But the sad fact is that many believers fail to experience lives of happiness and contentment. This short but powerful booklet calls us to a life of yieldedness to the Lord Jesus Christ, that he may give us fullness of joy, and cause that joy to flow through us into the lives of others.

Do you struggle with unhappiness? Ask for your free copy of Happy Though Poor 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 complete list of stations carrying our programs, visit our website at alliancenet.org. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you.

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 toll free, 1-800-488-1888. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888.

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