From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We continue this evening our study of the words that are to be found in Paul's epistle to the Romans in chapter ten, verses nine and ten. "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, we've defined these two verses as the Apostle's statement or definition of what is meant by saving faith. It comes as an explanation of what he's been saying in the preceding verses. Now, we have divided up the matter like this. First of all, the Apostle gets us to consider the content of saving faith. What is the content? What does it say? And then we'll have to consider, as he puts it before us here, the nature or the character of saving faith, and then thirdly, the proof of saving faith.

But we are at the moment considering the content of saving faith. It's very important that we should realize the richness of the content of this definition. What he says is this: If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, that Jesus is Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Now, there are two divisions, therefore, in this matter of the content of saving faith.

The first is the Lord Jesus, which means that Jesus is Lord. We've considered this in something of the richness of its content. It's a great declaration that he is none less than the eternal Son of God, the Lord of glory, and all that we've seen involved in that. And we've seen how that is the claim that is made for him everywhere in the New Testament.

The first thing we must be clear about is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as Christianity apart from this. Christianity is based entirely and utterly upon this person and this great truth concerning him. So we have seen that what the Apostle is saying here is not that we, to use a phrase that's far too often used, have taken him on as our Lord, or that we regard him as our Lord and Master. It includes that, but it means much more than that.

It is not so much a statement of what we do about him as to who he is. And he is the Lord of glory. He is Jehovah, the third person in the blessed Holy Trinity. Then we began last Friday night considering the second half of this great confession, the second half, if you like, of the content of saving faith, and it is this: that God hath raised him from the dead. Now, that's what we are considering at the moment.

Now, in putting this before you last Friday night, I indicated that it has often seemed strange to people that the death of our Lord is not mentioned here. But I suggested that we should soon see quite why that is the case and the significance of that fact. The Apostle is primarily concerned to emphasize the fact of the resurrection because it is in the light of this alone that we are able to understand other aspects of the truth.

So we put it like this. We must believe and confess the fact of the resurrection: that our Lord literally rose in the body from the grave and that he was seen by chosen witnesses. All that we've just been reminded of in that section of 1 Corinthians 15 that we read just now. Paul says there is no gospel apart from that, and it's quite clear that there never would have been.

The church is the result of the great fact of the resurrection. That doesn't mean that his influence continues only; it means that he literally did rise from the grave and appeared to these chosen witnesses. Now, then we've looked at that, and then we were now beginning to draw the deductions, the significance of this fact of the resurrection. And the one we dealt with last Friday night was this: the resurrection proves who he is.

It is the final proof that he is the Lord. Declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. That's the statement we've already had in the first chapter of this epistle and in the fourth verse. And we gave other scriptural evidence to show the same thing. The resurrection is the ultimate proof of the fact that Jesus is the Lord.

But now we must go on from that. The second point about the resurrection, the second significance of the fact of the resurrection is this: that it explains to us why he died. Now, this is where the death comes in, and that is why it was unnecessary that the Apostle should mention the death of our Lord in particular. By asserting that he is the Lord and that he has been raised from the dead, he's including everything that happened from the Incarnation to the Ascension.

And therefore, you've got the beginning and the end here, and the beginning and the end include everything that comes in between. But it is interesting that we approach it in this particular way. Now, the problem that arises is this. If we are told that Jesus of Nazareth is the second person in the blessed Holy Trinity, is Jehovah the eternal Son, and that this is proved by the resurrection, well, then the question that immediately arises is this: In that case, why did he ever die?

It's the obvious question. If this person who lived in this earth was the Son of God, why then did he ever die? Now, that's the right question to ask at this particular point. And it is, of course, the best way of all of approaching the whole doctrine of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, one of the greatest classics ever written on this subject of the doctrine of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ was written by a man who lived in this country of the name of Anselm.

Called by the Roman Catholic Church Saint Anselm. Anselm. And he gave a very interesting title to his book. In Latin, he wrote it, and this was the title: *Cur Deus Homo*. Why God man? Now, this book is a book, as I say, on the atonement, on the death of our Lord. But that's the title he gave to it. Why God man? Well, I'm simply putting the question in a different form tonight by asking: If he is the God man, why did he die?

Anselm takes it a stage further back, the one we've already considered: Why is it that the Son of God has ever become man? He approached the doctrine of the atonement in that way. We are really doing the same thing, only that we are asking it more directly. If he is the Lord of glory, if Jesus is the Lord, why then did he ever die? Now, then, that brings us at once, you see, to the very heart of this question.

Now, it's a very good way, I say, of approaching this whole matter because we have evidence in the gospels themselves that this was a great stumbling block to the disciples, the men who ultimately became the Apostles. They found this a very great difficulty. Now, the classical passage, of course, on this is found in Matthew 16, the famous incident that happened at Caesarea Philippi.

Our Lord asks that question, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" Peter steps forward and makes his great confession: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And our Lord commends him and says, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." Peter has made the great confession that Jesus is the Lord, the Christ, the Son of God.

And our Lord tells him, "You haven't worked this out; this is a matter of revelation." But then the record goes on to tell us that our Lord proceeded immediately to tell them something about his approaching death. And immediately Peter and the rest get into trouble. "From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day."

Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, "Be it far from thee, Lord. This shall not be unto thee." You see the difficulty. Having made the confession that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the idea of his dying seems an utter contradiction. You would expect that the Lord from glory would escape death because he is the Lord of glory. And Peter stumbled, and our Lord had to rebuke him, saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men."

Now, it wasn't only Peter. They all stumbled, and we've got repetitions of that in different forms. So that this is a very good way of approaching this whole matter. And it was the thing, of course, that was hurled at the early Christians. You claim that this was the Lord of glory. Well, if so, why did he die on that cross? You remember the people at the foot of the cross. "Ha," they say, "thou who savest others, come down and save thyself. If you are," they said, "who you claim to be, what are you dying like that for in weakness?"

It's the right question to ask. They display their ignorance in asking it, as the disciples had exposed their own ignorance in stumbling at the information. But it is the right way always to approach this whole doctrine of the death of our Lord. Here he is, proved to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead. Very well, that raises very acutely: Why did he ever die then? It's inevitable.

So you see, in this confession that God has raised him from the dead, there is implicitly involved at once the whole matter of the death of our Lord. Very well. And the answer, of course, is given to us quite plainly in the gospels and in the remainder of the New Testament. This is the Apostolic preaching. You see what we're looking at in these two verses, and indeed in verse nine alone in a sense, we have a complete synopsis of the first Christian preaching.

This is what the Apostles themselves preached, and this alone is the gospel. And it is the only gospel tonight. And all this philosophic talk which is so rampant today in the name of Christianity has nothing to do with this at all. This is Christianity according to the New Testament, and we have no other standard, we have no other authority whatsoever. Very well, then, let's look at it. Why did he die, I say, if he's the Lord of glory?

Our Lord himself answers the question. He says quite deliberately and plainly that he could have avoided it. He could easily command twelve legions of angels, he says, and avoid it all. If he wanted to, he could have. Nevertheless, we are told that he set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. He knew exactly what was going to happen. His followers of his and others tried to dissuade him from doing so on more than one occasion.

There are plenty of illustrations and examples of this. Take, for instance, what we read in Luke 13, at verse 31. "The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, 'Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee.' And he said unto them, 'Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Nevertheless I must walk today, and tomorrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.'"

Now, then, the question is, if he thus deliberately went to the death of the cross, which he could have avoided, why did he do so? Why did he deliberately set his face to go to Jerusalem? Why does he tell his followers, when they pull out a sword to defend him, to put it back in the scabbard? And again, there is no difficulty about the answer. You see, people get into trouble because they will not believe the scriptures.

If you believe the scriptures, there's no difficulty. But if you begin to say that you don't accept this, that these are just symbols, that it was just people writing at that time with their primitive notions and ideas, and that we now know so much more and have our great philosophy and so on, well, then you're going to be in great trouble. You're going to have a Christianity, if it is Christianity and it really isn't, which has nothing to do with the New Testament at all.

But if you come with a simplicity and a childlike faith, knowing that you know nothing and regarding this as the revelation of God, there is no problem. Listen. He gives us his own answer. Why does he set his face steadfastly? Why does he take no notice of the warnings about Herod and what he's going to do to him and so on? And this is his answer: "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."

Now, he says that quite explicitly, and it's recorded very carefully for us in Matthew's gospel, in chapter 20, and in the gospel according to Mark, in chapter 10. It's here for us everywhere. His own specific statement. Not only that, he's made other statements. You remember how in that high priestly prayer which is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John's gospel, he makes it quite plain. There's no difficulty at all.

Here it is at the very beginning. "Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come." He'd already referred to this hour. The great statement with respect to it in the twelfth chapter of John's gospel. I don't want to spend too much time with this, but in view of the present confusion about the meaning of our Lord's death, I feel we can take nothing for granted. I feel a sense of responsibility in warning you against these false teachings that deny all this glorious teaching and leave you with nothing but philosophy and human suppositions and theories.

Listen to it in John 12:27. "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name." Then there came a voice from heaven, saying, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." And then later on, "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." This he said, signifying what death he should die.

Could anything be plainer? He was constantly teaching them about this and preparing them for it, in spite of their incapacity to receive it. He goes on telling them. And there it is, I say again, in the seventeenth chapter. "Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." And then he goes on to say, "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." And later on in that same chapter, you find that he says this: that he sanctifies himself for them, and that is again a reference to his death. Seventeen the nineteenth verse. "For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth."

And then, of course, above and beyond everything else, there he is dying on the cross. And this is his word. "It is finished. It is finished." He there has finished this work which he came to do. And it's on the cross by dying that he finishes it. Very well, here are his own statements. What does it all mean? Well, very fortunately, he himself has given us an exposition of this, and he did so after his resurrection.

Now, this is most interesting and important from the standpoint of this statement in Romans 10:9. The disciples, as I've explained to you, simply could not take this teaching about his death. They could take his teaching about his being the Lord and the Christ, but they couldn't see that that was compatible with his death and his dying and apparently defeated by his enemies.

So that after the resurrection, when they realize anew and afresh who he is, our Lord explains it and expounds it to them. Indeed, he even did it to two of them before they realized who he was. I'm referring to the two men on the road to Emmaus. You remember how crestfallen they were, how dejected, disappointed, and unhappy. The death of our Lord. They put it like this. They said, "We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel."

They said, "That's what we believed when we saw him and listened to him and saw his miracles. We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel." But what they're saying is this: "We realize now we were wrong. If he had really been the Messiah, he wouldn't have been killed. He'd have conquered all his enemies, and we'd be the greatest people on the face of the earth. We trusted, we had hoped, we were quite sure, in fact, but we've been all wrong. He died, and they buried him in a grave."

Then our Lord begins to speak. And he says, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. That's the two men on the road to Emmaus. But then he did the same thing with the assembled disciples back in Jerusalem.

Verse 44 in Luke 24. "He said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved 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. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."

Now, there is our Lord's own exposition and explanation of the reason why he sets his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, why he was determined to die. The answer is that he had come into the world in order to die. Very well. It's not surprising, therefore, that when you come to the book of the Acts of the Apostles and there begin to listen to the preaching of the Apostles themselves, you find that they did exactly the same thing as he had taught them to do there after his resurrection and before his ascension.

So Peter does it on the day of Pentecost in the sermon recorded in the second chapter of Acts. But perhaps one of the plainest statements of it all is again concerning this Apostle Paul. And here it is at the beginning of Acts 17. "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ."

Now, that's only a synopsis of a sermon. That's not the whole sermon. That's why people constantly surprise me. They fail to realize that we have nothing here but synopses. That's not a sermon. The Apostle took a long, long time to say that. The Apostle, as you remember, we're told in Acts 20 was capable of preaching for hours, starting in the afternoon and going on until midnight and even beyond that. We only get summaries here.

And the tragedy today is, it seems to me, that modern Christians are not only not realizing that these are summaries, but they're even making summaries of the summaries. And instead of expanding them and seeing the content and the riches of the content, which is what we are trying to do these Friday nights. Now, then, you see what the Apostle did. He reasoned and alleged and proved and demonstrated. He says before we could be saved, the Messiah must die. The Christ must needs have suffered. This Jesus whom I preach unto you is the Christ.

The two things we are dealing with here. You understand this doctrine of the death of our Lord in the light of the resurrection. But, of course, it's not confined to the book of Acts. It was for this reason that the Apostle says he determined not to know anything among them save Jesus Christ and him crucified in Corinth. 1 Corinthians 2:2. He gives them the teaching concerning the Lord's supper in the eleventh chapter of 1 Corinthians.

And then that mighty passage which we read at the beginning. There it is again. And I feel that it wouldn't be a bad thing if we all got these typed out or printed them in large letters and put them on the wall and learned them by heart and told everybody about them when people said, "What is Christianity?" Well, say this is the answer. The Apostle Paul gives a synopsis of it at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15. "Brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."

What is it? Well, here is another synopsis. "I delivered unto you first of all"—some say that means "at the beginning," the first thing I said, others say "chief in importance." I believe it means both. "I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received"—wasn't his own theory or idea, it wasn't his own philosophical speculation. He received it. He was given it by the Lord himself on the road to Damascus. What is it? Here it is. "How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures"—as the scriptures said he would do, and as the scriptures said he must do.

What else? "And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" again, and that he was seen of Cephas and the twelve and so on. But you see, the essence of the gospel is those two things: that Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose again from the dead. All this is a fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Old Testament. Now, there you again have nothing but a brief summary and synopsis.

It took the Apostle great time to expound all this. This, he says, is the thing in its essence. In other words, if a man doesn't believe that Jesus is the Lord, if he doesn't believe that he had to die before we could be saved, he's not a Christian. If he doesn't believe in the resurrection, he cannot be a Christian. These are the first principles without which there is no such thing as Christianity at all. To me, it's nothing short of tragic that one has to go on saying these things.

But you see, scarcely a day passes but that I either read a book or read a review of a book in which I find all this completely denied in the name of the Christian church. My friends, we should thank God that we happen to be dealing with Romans ten verse nine and ten. We are reminded here of the things without which we can't be saved. Listen. "You've got to keep these in memory," says the Apostle, "by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."

If you've gone back on this, he says, there was no value in your belief, so-called. This is the thing which is absolutely essential. Very well, notice that "according to the scriptures." It's most important. The Bible is one. The whole of the Old Testament predicts and prophesies what happened in the New. Here's a unity, and you can't shed your Old Testament. We need it all. Very well, then of course you've got other great statements of it.

2 Corinthians 5:19 to 21. The ministry of reconciliation. What is it? Well, it's this: "to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them... for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." There's the Apostle Paul, his typical preaching. Ephesians 1:7. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace."

It's everywhere. Peter says it. "You were redeemed from your vain conversation inherited by tradition from your fathers, not with silver or gold or things like that, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot and without blemish." And John reminds us that it is the blood of Christ that cleanseth us from all sin and all unrighteousness. The book of Revelation reminds us of the same thing. Washed in his blood.

Hebrews 2:9 is a glorious statement of it. "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." Nothing could be simpler, nothing could be plainer. Very well, what I'm trying to demonstrate is this: that when the Apostle tells us here that the second great section in the content of saving faith is the belief that God has raised him from the dead, you are being held face to face with the doctrine of the atonement directly.

Now, that's the important thing for us to realize. You don't simply believe that Jesus is Lord and that his influence is still persisting. It includes the death and the meaning of the death. So you see, this which looks such a simple statement on the surface, the moment you begin to examine it, you see that it contains the essence of all Christian doctrine. And at the very heart and center is this tremendous, crucial doctrine of the death of Christ, the doctrine of the atonement, the doctrine that he is our substitute, that he is the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, all that is involved in this great doctrine. We've been putting in our own form Anselm's doctrine, *Cur Deus Homo*. That's why God became man, as it were. That's why the God-man died. It is the fulfillment of everything that God had promised throughout the whole of the Old Testament period.

So you see, you are subscribing here to the doctrine of the atonement. You say that you believe that. But that in turn involves you in another doctrine. And the other doctrine is this: the doctrine of sin, and the doctrine of the fall of man, and the doctrine of the wrath of God upon sin. I say this so often; I'm constrained to say it again. I cannot understand the type of Christian who dislikes doctrine.

How do you live? What do you do with yourself? Don't you ever ask any questions? You say, "But I'm a simple person. All I believe is this, that I'm told if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you're saved. I've said I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm saved. Is anything more necessary?" But my dear friend, don't you want to ask questions? Don't you want to ask: Who is this Lord Jesus Christ?

What does it mean that I need to be saved? How does he save me? What does it mean to be saved? Now, the moment you ask those questions, you are asking for doctrine. You are asking for an explanation. And doctrine is nothing but the biblical answer to our questions. Here we have the explanations given to us by the spirit of God through these servants of his. So that you are given an understanding, and we are meant to have it.

You have no right to say, "I'm just a simple person, I'm not interested in doctrine." You are thereby saying that you're not interested in the Bible, for the Bible is full of doctrine. The Bible answers our questions. God is so gracious that he even asks them for us. He asks the questions even and then answers them. And if you are not interested in these mighty questions, I don't know what sort of a Christian you are.

The Christian is a man who longs to know everything that he can possibly know about this blessed person and what he's done for him. You'll never love him truly unless you do. And it is only as we have an understanding of these things that we realize what he's done for us and why he did it. So I say, you can't come face to face with this doctrine of his death upon the cross as a substitution for our sins without saying: Well, then what does that tell me about myself?

You see, the moment you say that Jesus is the Lord and that God has raised him from the dead, you say, "But why was he ever in this world and why did all this happen to him?" And the answer is: Well, because of what's true about you. And that brings you to this question: What is true about me then? And the Bible answers your question, and it's the Bible alone that answers it.

What is true about us? Well, what is true about us is that we are all fallen creatures. And then that raises another question: Well, how are we fallen? How did we ever become fallen? Have we always been fallen? That sends you back to the beginning of Genesis because you've got to ask, then: Well, what is man altogether? Are we struggling wearily to go upwards? Is that it? Are we as we are? Are we living as we are? Is the world in the moral muddle and mess that it's in because we're just at this particular stage in the process of evolution and we haven't gone on as far as we should have gone? Is it that, or is there another explanation?

And you see, there is another explanation. Man's gone down, man's fallen. And everybody's fallen. It's true of the whole of the human race. So you come immediately to the biblical doctrine of man, the biblical doctrine of the fall of man, and the biblical doctrine of man in a state of sin, man alienated from God, man under the condemnation of God's holy law, and man, as I say, under the wrath of God.

Now, those of us who've been following this from the beginning will remember how the Apostle put this before us at the very announcement of his doctrine. Do you remember away back in chapter one, when he really comes to grips after his preliminary salutations? He says in verse 16, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." Indeed, he says, "I glory in it, I exult in it." Why? Well, "because it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."

This is the thing I'm preaching, he says: that God has intervened and that God is saving, and God's got the power to save. Nobody else has, but God has, and my message is God's power unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. "For," he says, "therein is the righteousness of God revealed from heaven, from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For"—now here's the explanation.

The Apostle exults in this and is delighted about it for this reason: that the wrath of God has already been revealed from heaven on all or against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth in unrighteousness. You cannot really believe truly in the resurrection without believing in the doctrine of the wrath of God upon all sin. So it's not surprising that these modern and notorious writers do not believe in the resurrection and at the same time and for the same reason they don't believe in the doctrine of the wrath of God upon sin.

They don't believe it; they say it's impossible in a God of love. They don't understand it; therefore, it's impossible. You see, you deny one of these doctrines and fairly soon you'll be denying them all. If you're logical and consistent, you'll have to. Every one of these doctrines belongs together, every single one of them. It's a complete body of doctrine. Drop out at any one point, you're bound to be in trouble with all the rest. Here is the perfect illustration of that.

Very well, then. All these things, you see, are implicit in the statement that God hath raised him from the dead. He had to die. Why? Well, there are your answers. So you're committed to all those biblical doctrines with regard to man and his condition, how he ever got into it, and what his most desperate need is. So you see, it leads in turn to the other doctrines which the Apostle has already put before us.

He had to spend the remainder of chapter one, the whole of chapter two, and the whole of chapter three up until verse 20 in proving that this fallen state and condition is universally true: that it's as true of the Jew as it is of the Gentile. We are committed to that. And then, of course, in chapter five verses 12 to 21, he has that tremendous paragraph about our relationship to Adam. There was the cause of the whole trouble, and everybody's gone down with Adam. Sin, death passed upon all men, for that all sinned.

Very well. Now, all I'm trying to show you is that in this confession that we believe that God hath raised him from the dead, all that is involved. And you are asserting all that at the same time. Very well, then. There we've looked in general and in very summary manner at these great biblical doctrines which constitute the very essence of salvation.

But there is a further deduction. There is something else implicit in this statement. There is another significance to the fact that he has risen from the dead, that God raised him from the dead. And it is this, and with this we close this evening. The Apostle doesn't put it that he has risen from the dead. It's often put like that in the scriptures, but here he puts it in this form: that God hath raised him from the dead.

There's no contradiction. The Father and the Son act in cooperation. But here he puts this emphasis, and he does so for a very definite reason. The resurrection in a very peculiar manner asserts the sufficiency of Christ's death, that it was sufficient. He had said on the cross, "It is finished." But is it finished? How can we know? He died, he expired. They took down his body, they buried it in a grave.

Has he triumphed? Has he done what he had come to do? The answer is: If he had remained in the grave, the answer would have been no. But the resurrection turns the no into yes. So you see, this same Apostle at the end of chapter four was very careful to put it to us like this. He says in verse 23, "Now it was not written for his sake alone"—that's to say Abraham—"that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered unto death for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

The resurrection, as we emphasized when we were dealing with that great statement, is God's public proclamation to the whole universe that he is satisfied with the work of his son, that he has honored the law absolutely, that he has borne the most ultimate penalty of the law and its demands. In raising him from the dead, God is proclaiming that he and his law are absolutely satisfied, and that the work of salvation is complete.

Not only that, we get the Apostle repeating the same thing really as we saw in chapter six, in verses eight, nine, and ten. "Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once and for all: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God."

Now, there is a wonderful and categorical statement. He has died unto sin, he has died in this matter of dealing with sin, once and forever. Never to be repeated; it'll never be necessary again. So he told us again in chapter eight in verse three "that what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned," has dealt with sin "in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us."

And again, a very wonderful and beautiful statement of this particular point is the way in which we found it in Romans chapter eight and in verse 34, especially in two words. Listen. "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 also maketh intercession for us." And the truth is in the little words "yea rather."

"Christ that died, yea rather." This is my certainty. If it stopped at that, I'd have no certainty. But I have a certainty, says Paul. "It is Christ that died," ah yes, that's where the work was done, but how can I be sure of it? "Yea rather," risen from the dead. And it is there that I have my absolute certainty and assurance that the work was complete, that it was utterly finished, that he has paid my debt in full, that there is no condemnation to me, there never can be.

He has finished the work. "Yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Very well, we'll have to leave it at that for this evening. We are still, remember, drawing out the implications of the statement that God hath raised him from the dead. You're not just saying, "I believe that he rose from the dead."

You see how much you're saying in addition. You see what you're including. The whole business and object of biblical study is to draw out the meaning that is given us here in summary form. So don't make synopses of the synopses. Your business and mine is to draw them out, is to expand them, is to get the full content of them and to realize what that is.

As we pointed out when we began these studies, the Apostle had intended visiting Rome. He tells them that in verses 11 and following. He'd been unable to do so, and he wrote this letter to the Romans simply, as it were, to give them something to get on with until he could come. He simply sends a brief summary of what he's going to say. And when he arrived, he spoke for hour upon hour upon hour as he showed them the content of these brief summary statements.

And that is what you and I are supposed to do. We declare that Jesus is Lord, that God hath raised him again from the dead. And in saying that, we see already some of the things which we are claiming and to which we are committed, and there are yet more to follow. But God willing, we will continue with that next Friday night. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we humbly thank thee once more for thy lovingkindness to us. Lord, thou hast made this provision for us. We see our constant tendency to limit the glory of thy grace and of the gospel. Oh God, wilt thou enlarge our hearts, enlarge our minds and understandings. Oh, reveal these things to us, we pray thee, in all their fullness that we may rejoice in them and revel in them as we should.

We thank thee for all who have gone before us; we thank thee for all who help us to enter into these riches. Oh God, receive our humble prayers. And now may the grace of our Lord and Savior 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, uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and evermore. Amen.