From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Most of you will remember that we are dealing at the moment with the words found in Paul's epistle to the Romans in chapter 10, verses 11, 12, and 13. Verses 11, 12, and 13 in the 10th chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans: "For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Now, this is a little subsection as we've seen in which the apostle is giving the proof and the demonstration of what he has been laying down in the previous subsection. There, he's been showing that the way of salvation is the way that was being preached by him and the other apostles: the word of faith which we preach. And that is that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Now, he sets out to prove this, and he does so by means of quotations from the Scripture. We've shown how the apostle always does this and how important it is that we should do the same thing. We don't merely preach our own experiences; we don't merely preach our own thoughts and ideas. Our whole position depends upon the Scripture, the revelation of God and of God's gracious purpose in this world of time. Nothing is more important than that we should be able to show that our whole position does really depend upon what God has done and what God has revealed concerning what he has done and what he is going to do.

Very well, we then moved on to consider the actual statements, and we began with verse 11. "For," says the apostle, "here's the demonstration." The Scripture saith. What does it say? Well, the first thing it says is that it is believing which is the way of salvation. Whosoever believeth on him shall be saved. Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Here's the first one. And so we've seen that this is the great principle taught in the whole of Scripture. Abraham believed God; it was accounted unto him for righteousness. That's the principle. The principle of faith. Salvation is by faith, by believing.

There is the first thing, and we've looked into that. The second emphasis is upon "believeth on him." And there, you remember, we saw that the apostle is quoting from Isaiah 28:16. The full quotation is this tried, precious stone that God himself is laying in Zion. So it is faith, belief on him because he is who and what he is. The stone is a precious one; it's a tried one, and therefore it is sufficient. There's the second emphasis: believing, believing on him.

To make it still more certain for us, he adds this, which is again a part of the quotation: "Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." Now, that's the point where we resume this evening. You see, the apostle is demonstrating all that he's been saying. It is by believing; it is by believing on this one person, Jesus, who is Lord and who has been proved to be the Son of God by the resurrection, including all that is involved there. On him. He says it's been foretold centuries ago that whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

Now, what is the exact meaning of this? Well, this is something which is very vital to the apostle's argument and is very important and very wonderful from the standpoint of our faith and our assurance. He's establishing the certainty of this way of salvation. That's the meaning of this. The actual original in the Hebrew there in Isaiah 28:16 is "whosoever believeth on him shall not make haste." So it can be translated like that: make haste, put to shame, or be ashamed, disappointed, and so on. All these are variant and alternative translations of this particular statement.

What does it mean? Well, these are the points obviously that the apostle has uppermost in his mind here as he quotes this particular statement. He that believeth on him shall never be refused. What it means is this: he is thinking in particular of the Jews who'd been brought up in their particular way and who wrongly had come to believe that it was the observance of the law and their own good deeds and their own worked-up righteousness, which they went about to establish, as he puts it. Suddenly, they are told that they mustn't do that, but that they must turn to this person and believe on him.

But the question is, what if it's wrong? What if there's something false here? Can we be sure that we'll be received if we do this? Now, this is a part of the answer to that. Whosoever believeth on him shall never be put to shame. You won't leave everything else and go to him and then be refused by him. This is a most important point. You'll never turn to him in vain. You'll never turn to him and find that he isn't there when you need him most of all.

Now, this is just another way of saying what our Lord himself said. It's quoted there, and it's one of the most glorious statements in any of the gospels anywhere, in the sixth chapter of the gospel according to Saint John in verse 37. I'll take verse 36 with it: "I said unto you that ye have also seen me and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." What he means is this: anybody whom the Father calls and sends to me, I will never at any time or in any way refuse or cast out. Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.

Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. It would be a terrible thing for us to forsake everything and to go to Christ and appeal to him or cast ourselves upon him and for him to cast us out and to refuse us. Such a thing, he says, is quite impossible, and the prophet Isaiah had prophesied that so long before this had come to pass. It means that. But I think it has another meaning also. It links up with what we've just been dealing with in the tenth verse, ninth and tenth verse: this confession with the mouth.

We worked it out, and we said that one of the meanings of confessing Christ with the mouth—and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation—one of the most important aspects of this confession, this thing which proves that we are Christian. And remember, in dealing with these proofs of the genuineness of our belief and our faith, we were not concerned about our personal assurance but the evidence which we give to others and to God that our belief is genuine and is true and is not merely something intellectual. It doesn't refer to us; it's the external evidence that we give. And one of them was that we are not ashamed of him.

You remember we considered certain circumstances in which we might be tempted to be ashamed of him. For personal interest or for the sake of personal advancement in this world, the temptation comes to men to deny Christ or to be ashamed of him. You remember we are told of people in the twelfth chapter of the gospel according to Saint John, verse 42: "Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God."

Now, that is not confessing him for certain reasons. But what we are told here is this: that if we do confess him and thereby prove that we're never or in any sense ashamed of him, that he will never be ashamed of us. Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame. You put your trust and confidence in him at all costs and never be ashamed of him, and he will not be ashamed of you. Now, he said that himself. Let me read to you Luke 12:8-9. Also, I say unto you, says our Lord. He's here sending out a number of his disciples to preach and to teach.

He says, "Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God." All right, you confess me before men, and I, he says, will confess you before the angels of God. Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. He'll never deny you. He'll never say of you, if you are truly his people, that he never knew you and that you have no connection with him.

You remember that we have evidence for saying this. You get it at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in the seventh chapter of Matthew's gospel, that he is going to say about certain people who come saying, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name cast out devils and done many mighty works?" He will profess unto them, "I never knew you." He doesn't acknowledge them. They are definitely put to shame because they were false believers. But what he says here is this: that a true believer, a man who really believes in him from the heart, shall never be put to shame in that sense, never. He will never refuse to acknowledge such people; he will never deny them and say that he never knew them. Whosoever really and truly and from the heart believeth on him shall not be ashamed. He shall not be put to shame in that final sense.

I think it has another meaning also that is a great comfort and consolation. Whosoever believeth on him, to put it very simply in modern terms, will never be let down by him. He'll never fail him. He has promised, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." There will never be an occasion in this person's life and experience when he will feel that Christ has failed him or has in any way let him down. He will do everything that he has promised to do. He will never fail in any single respect or in any detail.

Now, there are various enemies confronting men in this world. There are certain oppositions to our salvation, and we've got to recognize that. Man is a creature face-to-face with a number of enemies who are standing between him and salvation. And what we're really told here is this: that our Lord has defeated every one of them, that there is not a single enemy, there is nothing that is opposed to man's interests and salvation, but that he has dealt with it and he will deal with it. Now, we've seen quite a number of them in working through this great epistle. There, first and foremost perhaps, is the Law.

The law of God has become an enemy to us, though it's the law of God. It's an enemy because of our weakness. It is making a demand of us that we can never fulfill in and of ourselves. So Christ, in order to save us, has to deal with the law, and he has. You believe on him, and there will never be an occasion when the law can bring anything whatsoever against you which will condemn you. "There is therefore now," he has already told us in chapter 8, verse 1, "no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."

And he says that in the context of the law, which he's been dealing with in the whole of chapter 7, and which he goes on to deal with until halfway through the fourth verse of that eighth chapter. No condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from that law of sin and of death. That law led to nothing but sin and death; I'm free from it. No condemnation. Very well, the law, which has become our enemy because we're in sin, he's dealt with it.

Never will you be condemned by the law if you believe in him; you'll never be put to shame. No one will be able to do some research work, as it were, and find some subsection or some subclause of some subsection in the great law which finally gets you down. No danger. "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who maketh intercession for us." That's the answer: no condemnation.

And it is the same with the Devil. The Devil is our enemy, the adversary, the accuser of the brethren. Our Lord has defeated him completely and totally. Whosoever believeth in him will never be defeated by the Devil, and it is only as we forget him and his strength and his power that we are defeated by the Devil. Onward march all-conquering Jesus, gird thee on thy mighty sword; sinful earth can ne'er oppose thee; hell itself quails at thy word. That's the position. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.

Roaring lion roaming about to seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. Thus you see, he has conquered the Devil, and the Devil has no hold upon the child of God. Whosoever believeth in him shall never be put to shame by the Devil, never. The whole world lieth in that evil one, but that evil one toucheth us not, says John in his first epistle and in chapter 5.

Now, that's the kind of thing that is included here. Whosoever believeth in him shall never be ashamed, shall never be put to shame, shall never make haste, shall never be in a frenzy, shall never frantically wonder what he's going to do. The law, the Devil, sin, dead unto sin, says Paul. We've already seen in the sixth chapter of this great epistle. Dead indeed unto sin, alive unto God. He's defeated, and likewise with death itself, the last enemy. He has conquered the last enemy.

So the Christian, you see, is in this happy position. I'm sure you've already recognized it: I've simply been paraphrasing what the apostle has already told us in that glorious climax at the end of chapter 8 of this epistle to the Romans. "I am persuaded," which means I am absolutely certain, "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Whosoever believeth on him shall not, shall never, be put to shame, never.

There is nothing in the whole cosmos that can ever put the believer on Christ into this position—that he is let down or is ashamed or something has failed or some detail has gone wrong. No, it is a perfect salvation; it can never fail at any point or in any respect. It's another way of saying, in other words, that whosoever believeth on him is absolutely saved. He's got eternal security. The final perseverance of the saints is due to the fact that they believe on him who has conquered all the enemies. It is in him and not at all in us.

If our salvation depended in any respect or at any point or in any single detail upon us, we would all be lost. Not a single person would ever have been saved or ever would be saved if it depended in any sense on us. Thank God it doesn't. From beginning to end, it is the purpose of God, and it is certain and sure because it all depends upon this tried, precious stone, him, the conqueror renowned who has conquered every enemy and from whom nothing and no one can ever separate us. No man shall be able to pluck us out of his hand, never be put to shame.

That's exactly what he's saying. Very well, then, that's the third thing, you see, that is emphasized in this quotation from Isaiah 28:16. It's believing, believing on him, the inevitable consequence of that: never be put to shame. But you notice that because of all that, it follows of necessity that this is a salvation for whosoever believeth in him. Now, I say that follows as a logical necessity. This is the implied argument: as it is believing on him that matters, as it is his strength and perfection and absolute qualities that matter, as salvation, in other words, does not depend at all upon us but entirely upon him, it is a salvation which is possible for anybody. It is a salvation for whosoever believeth in him.

Now, I know immediately this word "whosoever" is a great word in a famous argument. "Whosoever! Ah," they say, "there you are! Free will after all! Whosoever! Whosoever believeth!" Yes, but my dear friend, that isn't the point either of the prophet or of the apostle Paul here. He's not considering here as to what makes a man "whosoever." He's done that in chapter 9. All he's showing here is this: that any man, whosoever he may be, whether Jew or Gentile, who believes on him shall not be put to shame.

In chapter 9, he's told us very plainly and clearly what decides who does believe in him. He's not concerned about that here; he's already dealt with it. That has always been one of the most futile and time-wasting arguments that the ignorance and sin of men has ever invented. "Ah," they say, "it's the whosoever! 'God so loved the world that whosoever believeth!' You see, if a man only decides to believe!" But the verse doesn't say that. All the verse says is this: that whosoever does believe in him shall not perish. It doesn't consider the question as to what makes a man believe in him.

But that is answered, as I've said, in the ninth chapter of this great epistle, as it is answered in that second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians which I read at the beginning and in many other places. Well, now, I mustn't allow myself even to digress because of this foolish argument. That isn't the point at issue. The point at issue is this: that as it is a matter of believing and of his activity altogether and his being who he is and nothing in me, well, then what saves is nothing in me. That means then we're all in the same position: whosoever believeth in him shall not perish and never be put to shame.

Very well, now to prove that I'm simply expounding the Scriptures to you at this point, we just go on to the next verse, which is verse 12. The importance of the whosoever is simply this. "For," this is Paul now expounding what he's just been saying, as he always does—makes his statement, proves it by a quotation, elaborates the quotation—"For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek." In other words, the "whosoever" may be a Jew, he may be a Greek. That's all the apostle's concerned to say.

There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. Now, this is a great statement this, a glorious verse. And such a glorious one that again we've got to pause in the vestibule. I've often commended the importance of staying a little time in the vestibule before you come into the building. Paul's vestibules are very wonderful always, and here is a vestibule. What do I mean by all this? Well, what I mean is this: that the apostle never just exactly repeats what he said. He does that, but he always adds to it. There's always something further.

And here is a perfect illustration of that very thing. He expands, he expounds, but he always adds, and always watch his additions. What makes him do this? Well, I think there's only one adequate explanation of that. The apostle was not just a logician; he is a great logician, there was never a greater, there was never a man who proceeds with reason and logic and understanding and demonstration from point to point. He's the great orderly mind of the whole of the New Testament. He was a highly endowed man in that respect, but there was something even greater than that about this man. He'd got a very great head, but his heart was much greater.

We think of this man instinctively, as I say, as a giant intellect, but he is one of the most moving characters in the New Testament. His emotional nature was as profound, if not profounder, than his intellectual nature. And the apostle, as the result, can never contemplate some great massive truth without being moved by it. And he's so moved by it that he has to turn aside, as it were, and put in some new feature, add another thought, throw in some word.

And that's the very thing that he does here. You see, all he really was concerned to demonstrate when he began his exposition here was that there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. But in saying that, his fire is imagined, his imagination is fired, his heart is moved. For the same Lord, he says, over all is rich—rich! There it is. In one word, he's thrown in, I was almost tempted to say, the whole cosmos of love. Rich unto all that call upon him.

There's the new thought. However, now then, having paused in that way as we're entering from the vestibule into the building, let's consider exactly what he is saying. Now, he takes up this point, whosoever. It's believing that matters; it's believing on him that matters because that guarantees that there can never be failure, there can never finally be loss. But all that implies of necessity, whosoever. The word comes first in the quotation, but you actually arrive at it last in your process of thinking.

So he takes it up, and he says, "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek." Now then, the steps in the argument we can put like this: as believing is the way of salvation, it is obviously the way for all. This is a most wonderful material point, therefore, you see, in his argument and disputation with the Jew. If it is believing utterly, absolutely with nothing in yourself on this divine Savior, if that's the thing that saves and gives me security, well, then obviously it's rather ridiculous to be drawing distinctions between man and man.

If anybody, if everybody who is to be saved has to believe in him, well, that's the only thing that matters. Nothing else matters. Therefore, there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. But you see, the whole trouble with the Jews was that they were arguing and had been brought up to argue that this was something peculiar to the Jew, that the Jews alone were God's people and that salvation was therefore only for the Jews, that the Gentiles were dogs, they were outsiders.

And that this preaching of this gospel to Jew and Gentile alike and saying that they were equally saved was blasphemy. That was the very argument that was brought against the apostle. He was regarded as and charged as being a blasphemer, nothing less, and on the grounds that he was preaching this salvation to the Gentile as well as to the Jew. Now, you notice that it's put here as Greek. The ancient world was often divided like that: Jew and Gentile, or Jew and Greek. And Greek here stands for mankind apart from God's revelation, human understanding, human knowledge, human wisdom—that's the Greek mind, the Greek mentality, the Greek outlook. So Jew and Greek means Jew and Gentile.

In other words, the apostle is saying that in the light of this way of salvation, it's obvious that nothing in man matters, and therefore all human divisions and distinctions are ultimately completely irrelevant. Why? Well, because all are under God in Adam to start with, and all have, as he's proved to us in chapter 5, all sinned in Adam, all are fallen in Adam, and all die because of the original sin of Adam. He's already argued it out in chapter 5, and therefore we're all equally sinners. We're all equally failures.

We're all equally under the condemnation and the wrath of God. Now, the apostle, you see, had come to see this, and this was why his conversion was such a climactic and dramatic matter. Here was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, yet he suddenly comes to see, and as he puts it there in Ephesians 2:3, "We were all," he says, "by nature, all, Jew as well as Greek, we were all by nature the children of wrath, the wrath of God was upon us even as others." That's the most amazing thing a Jew could ever say: that he as a Jew was as much under the wrath of God and a child of wrath even as those Gentile dogs, those outsiders.

And so, you see, he works it out as we saw in the reading at the beginning in that second chapter of Ephesians. Very well, then, this is the second great point now then that the apostle wants to establish. Let me remind you: he's got two big points which he must establish, and that's the whole purpose of this 10th chapter. One is that salvation is by faith alone: justification by faith, not by works. That was point number one. Second, that because of that, it was equally open to the Gentiles as to the Jews.

You remember, don't you, how at the end of that ninth chapter he took this whole point up? What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained unto righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone, as it is written, "Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed."

Now, as I've told you, chapter 10 is nothing but a sermon on that text. There's the text; here's the sermon. So the two things are: by faith, and obviously Gentiles as well as Jews. So here he is now winding it up: "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek." So he presses home this point upon the Jew. And this is what he says. He's got, I suggest to you, three things here which he says in this connection. One: the Jew is in no special position inherently face-to-face with God. No difference between the Jew and the Greek.

The Jews thought they were; he's proved to them that they're not. All are in the same position. For he said it many times already in this great epistle: all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The whole world lieth guilty before God. Right, there is, and you see he proves it here simply because if it is by faith, if it's all in Christ, then there's nothing in us. So the Jew is in no special position. Second, it must follow therefore from that that if all are in the same position of condemnation, that the gospel is also likewise universal in the sense that it is for the Gentile as much as it is for the Jew.

That it is to be offered to all men because there is no difference. And then, thirdly, that the Jew, therefore, was doubly wrong. The Jew is wrong in not believing the gospel himself, and he's secondly wrong in objecting to the fact that it should ever be offered to the Gentiles and that the Gentiles on believing it are received into the Christian church with the assurance that they are now citizens of the kingdom of God and fellow heirs and fellow citizens with all the great and glorious saints of the Old Testament who were exclusively Jewish.

That's the thing of which he convicts them. They're doubly wrong. They should have believed this gospel and have gloried in it because all their prophets had been pointing to it, but they hadn't. And secondly, they should not be annoyed or upset or even surprised that the Gentiles are believing it and are coming into the kingdom. So that they, he says, are doubly wrong. Now, how does he prove this? There's his proposition: there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. It is as possible for a Greek, a Gentile, to be saved as it is for a Jew. On what grounds? What right has he to say this? What right has anybody to say it? Now then, he gives us his answers. And the first answer he gives is this: the same Lord is over all.

They are all, Greek and Jew, Jew and Gentile, they are under the same Lord. Now, this is a great proposition. What he means by that is this: the Lord Jesus Christ. As we saw in working out the meaning of the statement that "Jesus is Lord," he is Jehovah. And Jehovah God is the Lord of the whole universe. Now, this is a tremendously important point. The Jew had worked himself into the position in which he believed that God was only God of the Jews. Because the Gentiles were pagans and didn't believe in the only true and living God, the Jews had drawn the false deduction that God was not the God of the Gentiles, that he was only the God of the Jews.

But the answer to that, as the apostle points out here, is this: that God is the God of the whole world, God is the God of all men. The fact that God in the Old Testament dealt directly and only with the Jew does not mean that he is not concerned about others and that he is not interested in them or that he has nothing at all to do with them. Now, you see the importance of this. Let me allow the apostle to expound himself. This was in many ways the theme on which the apostle preached in Athens on Mars Hill.

You remember there he was addressing a company of Stoics and Epicureans. He'd noticed that they were too superstitious, too religious if you like, that they'd got these temples to the various gods all over the place in their city, and amongst them this extraordinary temple with this inscription, "To the Unknown God." "Right," says Paul, "here's my text. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." And how does he do it? Now then, here it is: God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.

You can't localize him. The Greeks were foolishly localizing their gods and thought that they could even localize this unknown god into a particular temple. Yes, but the Jews were doing exactly the same thing. They were localizing him to Judaism. They were equally in error. He dwelleth not in temples made in hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything. The Jew really believed that you could only worship in the temple. You had to be in the temple. All had been materializing this belief in God, Jew and Gentile. Not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.

Fancy a Jew saying things like that! And hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. He's made everybody. Now then, forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God—he's speaking to Greeks, remember—we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's device.

Now then, here's the material statement: the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. In other words, you see, you've got to go back to the beginning of Genesis. You mustn't start your Bible reading even with Abraham. Don't you start reading the Bible at Genesis chapter 12; go back to the beginning. Many have started and still start in their thinking in Genesis 12. Salvation, they say, begins here with the Jews. Oh, no, no, it goes further back. What happened in the Garden of Eden, the promise that was given to Adam and Eve, was given to the whole of mankind. There was no division; there was no distinction then between Jew and Gentile; that was only subsequent.

God is the Lord of the whole universe. He is the Lord of all. And we must be extremely careful to observe this point. In other words, there is a danger for us as evangelical Christians in particular perhaps at this point: that in our right and natural emphasis upon God as the Savior, we sometimes forget God the Creator. And God is the Creator before he is the Savior. The whole world still is God's world. He is Lord of all. He is as much the Lord of the Gentiles as he is of the Jew.

Now, of course, in saying this here, the apostle is once more repeating what he's put very clearly before us before. The whole point of the second chapter of the epistle to the Romans was to establish this very point. You see, he's demonstrated in chapter 1 from verse 18 to the end how the Gentiles are in a terrible need of salvation. In chapter 2, he shows that the Jew is equally in need of salvation, that the Jew has foolishly thought that because he's got the law, that somehow that saves him. Behold, thou art called a Jew and restest in the law and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.

But here's the question: thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? And so on. And the point of all this is that it isn't merely the knowledge of the law that matters; it is the keeping of the law that really counts with God. That the fact they have the law doesn't save them; the fact they're circumcised according to the law doesn't save them. But then he gives his final mighty argument on this point in chapter 3. Let me read it to you, particularly the relevant portions.

Let me start reading in chapter 3, verse 21: "But now," here's the gospel dispensation, "But now the righteousness of God without, apart from the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets." They'd foretold it. "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ," listen, "unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference." In other words, there is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. The thing he's been establishing from chapter 1, 18 right up until this point. There is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Now then, there's a first great statement of it. But listen to him again putting it still more explicitly in the 29th verse of that third chapter. Or take it with 28 because it's the same connection again. "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." A man, whosoever you see, whosoever. A man, whosoever is justified, is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. "Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also." He is the God of Jew and Gentile; he is the Lord God of all men.

And that is why in his sovereign grace he saves men and women out of every tribe and nation, out of every color, out of every continent. He is the Lord of the whole universe, not only of the Jew. There's his first proof, then, of this contention that there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. It was a temporary difference only for the purpose of giving this revelation of himself. He made this nation in order to do a particular task, but not to give the idea or that men might think that only Jews are saved. No, no. Salvation is for Gentile as well as Jew, Greek as well as Jew. He is Lord of all. All are in Adam and come out of Adam, and God was the God of Adam, so God is the God in this sense of all men. All are equally sinners; all are equally failures; all are equally helpless and hopeless. All alone can be saved by this one and only Lord, this precious tried stone which God himself has laid for the salvation of men and women.

Very well, then, we've got to leave it, I'm afraid I can see, at that for tonight. But there is the first proof, the first demonstration. No difference between the Jew and the Greek because God is as much the God of the Greek as he is of the Jew. He's the God of all men. Let us pray. Oh Lord, our God, we come again unto thee with grateful and with thankful hearts. Oh Lord, we thank thee for the glory of thy truth, for the marvel and the mystery of thy ways, and for the perfection of thy word. Oh, we pray thee to give us an increased understanding of these things.

We bless thee for the understanding we have. We know it is thy gift given to us by the operation of thy spirit within us. And we thank thee, oh Lord, that we see something of the glory and the marvel of it all. We thank thee that it does move us, that it calls forth our admiration, our wonder, our praise, and our thanksgiving. Oh Lord, open our understandings yet more and more, and fill us with a great joy in thy truth, and enable us to impart it to others. Oh Lord, it grieves us to see men and women in ignorance and darkness, dismissing thy word, imagining in their folly that they know its content. Lord, we see that they're blind, blinded by the god of this world.

Have mercy upon them, that they may be enabled to look into and begin to see the glories and the wonders of thy grace in Christ Jesus, our blessed Lord and Savior. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night, throughout the remainder of this our short and uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and evermore. Amen.