Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

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

A Chinese evangelist was once preaching on the street. He spoke of the weight of sin, and a heckler called out to ask how much that weight was—50 pounds, 100 pounds? The evangelist answered, "If you have a corpse, will he feel the weight of 100 pounds on his chest any more than he will 50-pound weight?"

And so the weight of sin is upon the human soul, and it is only when the Holy Spirit makes us conscious of need that we can feel the weight of sin and turn to the Savior who is able to lift it.

Guest (Male): Over a half 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 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 "To Every One That Believes."

Every seventh-grade English student knows that a verb has three tenses: past, present, and future. But did you know that our salvation in Jesus Christ also has a past, present, and future tense?

Perhaps you've heard someone say, "We have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved." But what does this mean? Exactly how does God work in our past, present, and future to secure eternal life for his people? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans, chapter one and verse 16. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with the message entitled "To Every One That Believes."

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 that it is possible to pray to Thee directly and to come with holy boldness by the new and living way. Bless now the word as it goes forth. May it come in great power to hearts. We ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. This is the great text we now face in our study of the book of Romans. The gospel is the truth that rises out of the three great historical facts: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose the third day according to the scriptures.

The apostle now declares that belief in the good news of those three facts brings salvation. What is meant by salvation? The rest of the epistle will give the full answer, for our text today is in no small measure the text for all that follows in the epistle.

The English word "salvation" comes from the Latin word for health. In early times, it described the health of the body, but later it came to be applied to the health of the soul and the spirit. In our spiritual use of the word, salvation is everything that conduces to the safety, health, and happiness of the soul and spirit.

Salvation must begin, however, with the soul’s relationship to the God who created us. As a prelude to any thought of salvation, there must come the conviction that we really need salvation. The first chapters of this epistle contain the terrible diagnosis of the present condition of the human soul: totally estranged from God, lying in spiritual death, without hope, without strength, incapable of doing anything for itself beyond a temporary bandaging of some of its lesser wounds.

In these chapters, the soul is seen as totally apart from God, totally unable and incapable of doing anything for its ultimate salvation, and yet totally responsible to the God who created it. It was for these reasons that salvation had to begin with God and had to be his work.

The great good news of the gospel is that God did begin the work of reconciling the world to himself. He came in Christ, the Word made flesh, and dwelt among us in order to complete the three historical events which make salvation possible. He died for our sins according to the scriptures, he was buried, and he rose again from the dead according to the scriptures.

The entire work of salvation was thus accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, and now it can be applied to the individual. And this work is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. There are those who attempt to bring salvation to man by working on the outward circumstances of life. This is like working on symptoms instead of causes.

If you give cough syrup to someone who has a tubercular cough, you may quiet the throat irritation for a moment and temporarily lessen the cough, but it will soon break out with renewed force and much farther along on the road from cure. God declares that it is folly to attempt to bring salvation to man working from without. Salvation must begin from within by the work of God in the heart.

The word that is used in the original language for salvation covers the entire work of God on behalf of the human soul. I’m sure that not one of us, not even the one who has spent the most time in the study of the word of God, can fully comprehend the height and the depth of the vast subject of salvation. The depth is our need; the height is the provision that God has made.

Salvation begins when a sinner recognizes the fact that he is less perfect than God and therefore under condemnation. In order to make this very practical, I shall appeal to you directly concerning your own salvation. God comes to you today just as you are. There is nothing that you have to do in order to draw his attention to you. You do not have to make yourself better in order for him to start his work.

There’s an old hymn that puts it well: "Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream; all the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him." Now God comes to you whatever your background of education or the lack of it. He comes to you with your prejudices, however they may have been formed. He comes to you with a declaration that you are in a position that is desperate without his help.

He tells you that he is ready to furnish the help you need. Unfortunately, there are those who turn away from him because they live in a world where illusions are so plentiful. A man is in vigorous health, making good money, relatively happy. It’s easy to think that since you’re getting along so well in your progress through the world, you’re also getting along well in your progress toward God.

The fact is that you are lying in the embrace of death and do not realize your need. If you fancy that you have any ability that can help you, you have never understood your own inability or the magnitude of the task which is demanded of you. A man might be the world’s champion Olympic swimmer, but if he were suddenly thrown overboard in the middle of the ocean, the distance to the shore would be totally beyond his powers.

God declares that you are overboard in the sea of sin that estranges you from him. No breaststroke of emotion can bring you to the shore. You must recognize your lost position and submit yourselves to his sovereign grace. God commands men everywhere to repent, and repentance does not mean an emotional state of being sorry for your sin. It is derived from a Greek expression for the military command of "Right about face."

You have been facing yourself, trusting in your own ability, while Christ has been behind you, despised and rejected of men—rejected by you. You must about face. You must despise and reject your own efforts for salvation and realize that God has done all the work through the Savior and that he requires you to put your trust in him.

The late Handley Moule, Bishop of Durham in the Church of England, was a very godly man. One day he was walking along Princes Street in Edinburgh when he approached a corner where a group of Salvation Army workers were conducting an open-air meeting. One of the young women of the group came up to him and said, "Sir, are you saved?" The venerable bishop looked at her with a kindly smile and he asked her, "Do you mean I have been saved, I am being saved, or I shall be saved?"

And then she received from him a rich lesson on some of the great points of our salvation. True salvation is in all three of these tenses. In the past, the believer has been saved from the penalty of sin. In the present, he is being saved from the power of sin. And in the future, he shall be saved from the very presence of sin. If any one of the three were left out, there would be no reality of salvation.

Of what use is the remission of penalty if one remains in the slavery of sin's actions? And of what use is the past and present work of salvation if it is not to be continued to the logical fulfillment in heaven, where the complete triumph of righteousness and joy shall be ours forevermore in the perfection of circumstances and capacity?

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation from sin’s penalty. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The soul is separated from God by sin and will remain separated forever if not restored by the grace of God. This is the first work of salvation and that which we hear about most frequently.

It is the theme of the evangelists and the street corner preachers. It is the subject of most of the tracts. It is the proclamation to man that he is in death and darkness and that he will remain there for the unending ages if he is not saved from the penalty of sin.

One of the common errors of some preachers, however, is to say to audiences, "If you do not receive Christ, you will be lost." Someone says that sounds all right to me, but the proposition is presented as though the individual were at a crossroads, with his destiny depending upon a decision. Now, such language cannot be justified by the Bible.

The true way of presenting the gospel must be to explain the fact that if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you will remain lost. The penalty of sin is that the unbeliever walks in darkness. The penalty of walking in darkness is to be cast eternally into outer darkness. When I ask you if you're saved in this first sense, I'm asking you if the penalty of your sin has been remitted, and if your sins are covered, and if your fine has been paid so that you might be restored to the basis of fellowship with our holy God.

Reduced to its most elementary concept, we can say that Christianity is expressed in three propositions. One: I deserve hell. Two: Jesus Christ took my hell. Three: there is nothing left for me but his heaven. Now there, in those three propositions, is the great fact of past tense salvation for the Christian. Christ paid the penalty of my sin. I know that this salvation is my present possession, as something that has been finished forever.

Now, some of you who read these words or who listen to them as I speak may not yet have salvation, for you cannot have salvation in the present tense until you move into the salvation that has been purchased for you. And then you too may say, "I have been saved."

But salvation is also in the present tense. I am being saved from the power of sin. This does not mean that the Christian never has any further outbreak of sin, but it does mean that there has been provided for us a power which enables us to live with sin beneath us. When the Lord Jesus was born, the angel said, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." It does not say that he shall save his people in their sins.

If we are to understand this phase of salvation, it is necessary for us to realize that there is a great deal of difference between sin and sins. Sin may be likened to poison in the bloodstream; sins must then be likened to the breaking out of the boil on the surface of the body. Both of these must be dealt with. When we are first saved in what we have called salvation in the past tense, God has dealt with sin, the poison.

The illustration cannot be pushed to extremes, for the old nature of sin is not removed. Following this, there is the day-by-day warfare in connection with our salvation from the power of sin. The promise is there: "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace."

Now there are some non-Christians who attempt to deal with sins before they have dealt with sin. Any attempt at moral reform without believing in salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ is like putting salve on a surface instead of dealing with the poison in the bloodstream that caused the sore. It is possible to drive the sore to another part of the body.

Now, when we come to further chapters, we shall see the great fact of the possibility of day-by-day holiness in Christ. Suffice it to say that while we are not teaching the eradication of the old nature or any form of doctrine that is known as sinless perfection, we are teaching that there is a present salvation which makes it possible for a Christian to have the scales of life heavily balanced with victory over daily sins.

And we are teaching that the power that was given to Christ by the Father on the cross and the occasion of his resurrection from the dead is a power that is available to us today. Like the martyrs of the tribulation period, we may overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is also the power of God unto salvation in the future tense. It would be a sorry gospel indeed if our hope were in this life alone. If such were the case, we would be, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, of all men the most miserable. Are we doomed to see our bodies degenerate and our powers decline? Are we doomed to come to the end of all things in a narrow grave with a slab of marble weighing us down?

Thank God, the death of the believer is but his entrance into glory, and the hope of all who have come into the salvation of the past tense is that it shall find its full fruition in the salvation which is yet to be ours. Peter writes a great paragraph concerning that which is in store for the believers in 1 Peter 1:3-5.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

But the next point in our text is that this tremendous threefold salvation is for everyone that believeth. Do not think for one moment that it is possible to be saved without faith. Now, this raises some definite questions as to the nature of faith and as to the object of faith. Faith is belief, and no matter by what name you call it, it is simply acting upon the word of another.

If you wish to go from New York to Chicago, you pick up the telephone and call the railroad station. You ask for the hour of departure of trains going to Chicago. The operator tells you the time of the train, you pack your bag and go down to the station sometime before the hour that was given you, and you buy your ticket. And normally, the train will be ready to leave and will pull out on time.

You have acted upon the word that was spoken to you by someone you had never seen in your life. That's faith. And in the realm of spiritual things, faith is simply acting upon the word of God. He tells you you’re a sinner. You believe it, not only because of what you know to be in your own heart and in your own experience, but above all because of the revelation of salvation in the word of God.

He tells you that he came to die for you because he loves you. He tells you that he's put your sin on Christ and has crucified him in your place. He tells you that he raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead as a sign that by him, all who believe are justified from all things. I believed it, and I discovered that simultaneously with that belief, there had been created within me a new life. I had acted upon the word of God in a fashion as simple as I would act on the word of a clerk in the railroad information bureau. God produced a supernatural result when I rested completely in his word about the work that was done for me.

And finally, now, our text says that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. This was the Jewish phrase for expressing the universality of the human race. The reason for Paul's speaking of the Jew and Greek here is evident. He has come to his central theme. He is the herald of the gospel. He who was once the exponent of a narrow racial religion now announces that the gospel is the universal power of God.

It comes to the whole world. It is to everyone that believeth. He could not forget the great operations of God in the past for Israel, so he announces that the gospel came first to them. But he is careful to say that it is also for the Gentile or the heathen. Now this verse has been grossly misrepresented and misinterpreted. The gospel is not to the Jew first in point of importance, but in point of time. It came to them before it came to us.

When the great Jew Disraeli became Lord Beaconsfield, he was once twitted in the House of Lords because of his Jewish ancestry. "Yes, my noble Lord," answered Disraeli, "I am a Jew. And when your ancestors were living on acorns in the German forests, my ancestors were giving to the world law, literature, religion, and our very Savior."

Now if there should be any Jew that would listen to these words, I hope that he will understand the vital importance of this truth for us who were born Gentiles. For apart from this, we Gentiles have no hope. If they believed the Old Testament and only the Old Testament, then we, along with the vast flood of humanity that has peopled the globe for the last 2,000 years and which peoples it today, have been and are in a desperate state of hopelessness.

According to the Old Testament, no one of us could come under the grace of God unless we abandoned our Gentile position, accepted circumcision, and were adopted into one of the Jewish tribes. Only then, according to the Old Testament, would we be permitted to approach the tribe of Levi, by whom a lamb might be killed in order that we might have an atonement.

For we read in Hebrews 9:22, "Almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission." But the blood of the Old Testament turned into that which is the cross of the New, like a flower which has its bud in Old Testament times and flowers in the New Testament.

So the Jews will understand when I say that the old brith, using the Hebrew word, the brith which was narrow and racial, has turned into the new brith, the new covenant, which lifts the whole of the human race to a place of hope and makes it possible for all to approach the God of holiness. The order of the preaching, however, magnifies the Jews. It was thus spoken at the time of the resurrection of Christ.

Luke recounts that at the time of the resurrection, the Lord Jesus opened the understanding of the disciples and said unto them, "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."

We must never forget that the preaching began at Jerusalem. And we believe that the ultimate climax is going to be at Jerusalem, even as God announces. Any Christian who’s faithful to the Bible will confess immediately his debt to the Jew and will admit that the Jew has an advantage over him in the plan of God, providing always that he comes to the place of faith. The one whom we worship came to us first as Israel’s Messiah. That we can never forget.

That is why no true Christian can ever be anti-Semitic. But we must also realize the truth of the opening words of the epistle to the Hebrews: that the Christ is now the heir of all things and that his salvation is to be offered to those who were afar off, the Gentiles who were godless, hopeless, and Christless in the world.

The gospel in this age is never to be addressed to any man in the framework of his race, but in the universality of his membership in the human race. Now, the rest of the epistle will address us all—all, all as lost men. Christ will be exalted not only as the Lamb of God, a symbol peculiar to the Jews and understandable to us only through a study of their sacrifices, but Christ will be announced as the end of the law for righteousness and thus we Gentile dogs, the despised goyim, have our place in the thought of God.

And we pray Thee, our Father, that Thou wilt bless the word to every listening heart in this hour. We ask it through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.

Guest (Male): At one time, those outside the Jewish nation had no hope of salvation. Praise God that he now offers eternal life to everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, all who believe in Jesus Christ. We hope that you have benefited from today’s message entitled "To Every One That Believes."

Listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse via the internet; visit us at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is also available by calling us toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled "To Every One That Believes," or simply request message number R1-16.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled *What God Has Joined Together*. In the book of Malachi, God declares that he hates divorce, and yet in America, the divorce rate among professing Christians is virtually the same as that of unbelievers.

This booklet will show you from scripture how important marriage is in God’s eyes and how to maintain a strong, healthy relationship with your husband or wife. Ask for your free copy of *What God Has Joined Together* when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is the 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.

The Alliance also produces the radio broadcasts *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 stations carrying our programs, visit our website: alliancenet.org.

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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. Thanks for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.