Lawrence Taylor Ministry

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome to Teaching the Word with Dr. Lawrence Taylor. Each and every week, Dr. Taylor will be sharing a relevant message from the scriptures designed to inform and instruct us in the ways of our God. Dr. Taylor has been the pastor of Kenilworth Baptist Church in the Midwood section of Brooklyn for the past 22 years. He brings a wealth of experience to each broadcast, having been a New York City public schools teacher and a theology professor. Stay tuned to the end of the broadcast to find out how to stream today's message. Now, here's Dr.

Taylor.

Dr. Lawrence Taylor: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Teaching the Word with Dr. Lawrence Taylor. So glad that you can join us today. When you find the time, could you please contact us on my website? That's lawrencetaylorministry .org or .com. Go to contact and just leave a message telling us what this program means to you. Please tell your friends about us. Today we will examine Romans chapter 5 verses 5 through 11. This section begins with the Apostle Paul making a contrast between human love and God's love. And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

While we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare to die. But God demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Verse 5 speaks of the love of God being poured out or as it says in the King James shed abroad in our hearts. In other words, what Paul gives us is a description of a baptism. In times of anxiety, God reaffirms the love that he has for his children by baptizing our hearts with his love.

The word poured or shed abroad is used in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, in Joel chapter 2 verse 28. The Greek word is I'll spell that. That's e k c h e o. That is the word that's translated poured out. And it describes the outpouring in the book of Joel of the spirit on all Jews. Peter quotes Joel chapter 2 verses 28 to 32 on the day of Pentecost after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the 120 believers in the upper room in Jerusalem. Paul uses this verb to convey a baptism in the love of God.

The perfect tense of the verb is used to communicate the idea that the baptism of love in our hearts took place the moment we accepted Jesus and that its effects are felt up into the very present time. It is a reaffirmation of the love that God has for us. You know, when I was a New York City school teacher, I made a commitment to make sure that I would be to work on time. And I remember one day I got up extra early so I could be not just on time but be very early to work.

And so I left and I waited for the train. And I waited and I waited. And then they announced there was a delay. So I became anxious. And as a result of this delay, I was over an hour late even though I had left early. And I prayed before I got into that building. I said, God, you know my heart. You know I wanted to get here early. And now I'm getting in late. My class started. And when I walked into the building, the principal said to me, Mr. Taylor, why are you so early? And I said, early?

I'm late. He says, no, today we have a special schedule. You're not supposed to come in until this afternoon. Little did I know God was watching out for me. The apostle tells us that we lack the resources to make ourselves right with God. That's why we are described as weak or without strength. His He describes the death of Christ as a vicarious death. That is that Christ died in our place. Note he says Jesus died for the ungodly. That's how we are described. And the word for, that preposition in Greek means not only in place of but also for the benefit of.

We benefited beyond any imagination from the death of Jesus. The picture that we have in verse 6 is phenomenal. Paul uses a participle to describe our state. And it's translated in many translations while we were weak. However, this could also not only be translated in a temporal sense but a causal sense because we were weak. Now, in other words, our helpless state is what motivated Christ to give his life for us. This verse contradicts the expression God helps those who help themselves. Paul tells us that we are incapable of helping ourselves when it comes to the work of salvation.

The notion of synergism in theology, that it simply means you do your part and God will do his part is totally eliminated from the picture of salvation. Salvation is not a work that people do for God. It is a work that God does for us. Paul describes the limits of human love in verse 7. How many people would die for their friends or their loved ones is the essence of what he's saying in verse 7. Now, note Paul does not say no one because there are people who would do that. But he acknowledges that it is rare.

But note the contrast between verses 7 and 8 because in verse 8 he wrote but God demonstrated his own love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The verb demonstrated is from the Greek word I'll spell that for you. That's s u n h i s t e m i. has a variety of meanings. In this context, the verb denotes to render proof. There is absolutely no reason to question the love that God has for us. His love was proven at the cross. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

The cross is a revelation of the love that God has for us. Jesus did not die for his friends. He died for his enemies. This indescribable love is beyond human comprehension. The hymn writer wrote I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how he could love me, a sinner condemned, unclean. How marvelous, how wonderful and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me. But he says in the third stanza stanza he took my sins and my sorrows. He made them his very own. He bore the burden to Calvary and suffered and died alone.

And the chorus is worth saying again how marvelous, how wonderful and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me. Well, in verse 9 it reads much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. The natural question that arises when we survey the facts of the death of Jesus is why did he do it? Why did Jesus die for rebels who despised them? Why did he die for his enemies? Verse 8 describes the love of God as his own love.

This incomparable love is divine. The finite mind cannot grasp the magnitude of its dimension. It is both inscrutable and inexplicable. It is his own love, that love that is peculiar to God. The next question is if he did that much for his enemies, how much more will he do for his friends? The answer is expressed in the verse, in verse 9. Much more. God will not do less for the justified than he did for his declared enemies. Here the apostle gives the believer the assurance that we will ultimately be triumphant. So I say to the Christian, ease your mind, child of God.

You are safe in the arms of a loving God who exercised the last impulse of his love by sacrificing his only begotten son for you and me. We may be uncertain about what the future holds but we are safe in the arms of the one who holds the future. Verse 10 reads but if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. The word reconciliation katalasso and I'll spell that for you. That's k a t a l l a s s o.

Does not mean what our word for reconciliation means. In English, when we think of the word reconciliation, we think about bringing two or more hostile forces together. But this word means to bring about a change. As a result of the death of Christ, we have been changed from enmity to friendship. We were once enemies of God. Now, we are friends. If we remember in verse 1, the Apostle Paul starts off having been justified. Well, he says that again in verse 9 having been justified. It uses the aorist or the past tense. That indicates that what he is talking about is the result, not the results but the result of justification.

And remember what that result is. Peace with God. We are no longer at war with God. Well, he also uses another aorist tense when he uses the word reconcile. That's in the past tense too, having been reconciled. Well, that means that these events being justified and being reconciled may have taken place simultaneously. They are not the same. Justification is a declaration of innocence from the charges incurred from sin while reconciliation is the establishment of a new relationship based on love. Both works of grace are grounded solely on the redemptive work of Christ. However, another question arises in verse 10.

How much did the death of Jesus do for us? The answer is that it reconciled us to God. It changed us from being enemies to friends. It justified us. It saved us from the eternal wrath of God. If the death of Jesus did that much for you and me, how much more can Jesus do for you and me now that he is alive? That is the point of what the Apostle Paul is emphasizing in verse 10 that he is alive. How much more can his life do for us? And the answer is found in the verse, much more.

Look, the death of Jesus was a powerful death. Its cosmological efficacy is declared in the scriptures. For instance, in Romans chapter 8 verse 21 Paul wrote that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Creation is held captive in the corruption of decay and vanity. However, it will be set free at the return of Christ. While it seemed that this passage emphasizes the return of Christ, the liberation of nature from corruption and decay was made possible only through the death of Christ.

The Apostle Paul in that same chapter, chapter 8 verse 3 wrote what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. The judicial act described in Romans 8:3 was a sentence against death and all its consequences. It was the death of Jesus, not his second coming that sets us free. Even the universe was corrupted by the sin of Adam. And it was the death of Christ that set it free.

And that freedom will be realized when Jesus returns. The picture we have in Romans 8 is the final stage of our liberation that will be enacted at the return of Christ. But returning back to Romans chapter 5 verse 10, the crux of the argument is this, that if the death of Jesus could do so much for us, how much more can he do for us now that he is alive? The answer is found in verse 10, much more. This is without a doubt a reference to his mediatorial work as high priest. Paul never uses the term high priest.

Jesus is only called high priest in the book of Hebrews. However, the idea of Jesus as priest is strongly implied in Romans. Note, for instance, Romans chapter 8 verse 34. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. The glorified Christ in all of his incomparable splendor now acts as a mediator. If his death could justify me and wrought a transformation in both my standing and relationship with the highest tribunal in the universe, how much more can he do for me now that he is interceding for me in his glorious existence right next to the majesty on high?

What a wonderful idea. The Christian need not worry about his or her future destiny. We are safe and secure because our high priest will see that we will be triumphant. How confident can I be that I will make it? Well, Paul ends this section in verse 11 with an expression of absolute confidence. Not only but we boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have received the reconciliation. The word boasting, which is the King James, is the correct translation. And this idea of boasting is connected with verses 10 verses 9 and 10 because it says in both those verses we shall be saved.

That's the key. Golday wrote in his commentary on Romans and when this hour of salvation shall come, it will not be as men barely saved like those rescued from shipwreck or a deserved death that we shall cross the threshold of eternal salvation. It will be in the triumphant attitude of men whom the son of God has crowned with his own holiness and renewed in his glorious image and whom the father has marked with the seal of his adoption. Glory. Hallelujah. It is that mediatorial work that our high priest does right now that he is watching over us every moment.

So we needn't fret about our circumstances. You know, I remember a number of years ago when my wife and I were trying to purchase a home, I was short several hundred dollars for the down payment. It was actually quite frustrating. And I also purchased a used car. And I remember one day going to work and a taxi cab driver drove right through the red light and went right into my car and smashed it up. Thank God I was all right. But the car was totaled. And when I got out of the car, this was in Midtown Manhattan, I said to the cab driver, you went through the red light.

He looked at me and said, prove it. He says you don't have any witnesses. And I said, I don't, sir, but you went through the red light. He says I did but I'll deny it. And you know, people in New York, they don't want to get involved. Many people ran over to see that I was all right. But after that, they left. So there I was with a wrecked car, not enough money to pay on the house. And how was I going to tell my wife this? And after the cab driver pulled out, and by the way, his cab was just fine, a man ran down the street and he ran over to me and said, I am a New York City bus driver.

And he says, I want you to know I saw everything that happened and I saw that cab driver go through the red light. And I said, thank you, God. Well, we went through the insurance company and you know, one day it just so happened. This was not done intentionally. I kept missing the phone calls. But one day the insurance company that is for the taxi got in touch with me and said, hey, listen, we know you've been trying to avoid us. But we admit it was our fault fault and here is the last offer we're going to make.

And it just so happens that last offer that they made was what I needed for the down payment on my house to the penny. And I said, glory. Hallelujah.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to today's program. This broadcast is an extension of the ministry of Dr. Lawrence Taylor and the Kenilworth Baptist Church. To stream today's message, please go to lawrencetaylorministry .com and click on lawrencetaylorministry /message. Please join us again next week at the same time for Teaching the Word with Dr. Lawrence Taylor.

Guest (Female): Hallelujah. As long as you are near, please be near me to the end. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.