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Gentlemen, this is the last set of studies on the Epistle to the Romans that we shall be able to do, uh, on this occasion. So let's begin once more by reminding ourselves of the major thing that we have learned about Romans, that Romans consists of four major parts. And it is, as we learn to distinguish what each part is particularly about, that we begin to get a full view, a four-dimensional view of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So we notice it is in four parts. The first part gives us the reason, the first reason why people need to be saved. And that first reason is because we stand under the wrath and indignation of God. That is the first reason given in Romans why we need to be saved. And having noticed that, we observed how suited to that topic is what now follows in the first great part of Romans.
As, uh, we are told about the death of Christ, it is that he died for us as our substitute, dying for us, because he died to bear the penalty of our sins, and thus to bear our, for our sakes, the wrath of God against our sin. We notice too that the death of Christ is described in this first part as the propitiation for our sins.
Chapter three, that is. And we notice that the term propitiation deals with that aspect of the death of Christ, by which his death satisfied the wrath of God against sin. Appeases, if you like, to use the old word, appeases God. His wrath having been provoked by our sin. Christ died for us then.
He died as the propitiation, and that term is used with great accuracy and deliberation. It is the term, which being used of the death of Christ, signifies that his death satisfies the wrath of God against our sin. We notice then that, uh, when the passage, the first part comes to its climax and conclusion in the first eleven verses of chapter five, the glorious statement is made triumphally, because of Christ dying for us, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.
And we notice that Paul hasn't done, like some of us preachers do, wandered from the major theme and gone all over the place. Started out going to France and ended up with the Eskimos, uh, uh, uh, and then found ourselves regrettably in Africa and only came around to France at the end. It's not doing that kind of thing. It is following a deliberate theme all the way through to the end and comes to its climax. We shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. At that climax, we meet for the first time the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Chapter five, the love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given us. That is not our love for God, it is not here that the Holy Spirit helps us to love God. It is that the Holy Spirit, so to speak, take the love of God, like somebody might take a pitcher of water, and pours it out in our hearts. So it begins to trickle down through our conscious mind and through our unconscious mind, and our spirit's answer to it, the love of God for us poured out into our hearts.
That assures us that if we have once been justified by faith, we most certainly shall be in the future saved from the wrath of God. Assures us that if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, which death must have caused him infinite grief. We shall be saved by his life, which causes God eternal pleasure. So here is the Holy Spirit coming to the conclusion of this first part. We once stood under the wrath of God, now are reconciled, forgiven through the propitiatory death of Christ.
And now the Holy Spirit argues that God, who loved us so much as to give his son for us, is consistent in his character. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, we can be much surer that we shall be saved through him. The Holy Spirit, therefore, arguing the case logically from the character and love of God that gave his son to die for us, to satisfy God's own wrath against our sin.
And here is God's Holy Spirit telling us that God is so completely satisfied with our Lord's sacrifice that we shall be saved most certainly from the wrath of God through him, we shall be saved. So we notice that argument coming right down to its conclusion. Then in more recent, uh, sessions, we looked at the second major, uh, uh, part of Romans. And notice it is concerned now, of course it is concerned with the death of Christ for us. It is concerned for our salvation. But here it is with a particular part of our salvation.
It is not now that Christ died for us to deliver us from the wrath of God. We are now dealing with another part, the wreckage caused by Adam's sin. By one man's disobedience, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men. The sad wreckage of Adam's disobedience. So that we are born as sinners, lost and ruined by the fall, constituted sinners in our very nature.
We come of a fallen race. And now it it is a question of our sanctification, our redemption, the putting right of the wreckage. That's a different thing from the first one, deliverance from the wrath of God. This now is concerned, uh, with putting right the wreckage. Because, you see, it would be marvelous to be saved from the wrath of God because Christ died for us. But if that was all salvation was about, what a sad business it would be to have us forgiven and remain the wrecks that we used to be.
There must be this second side to salvation that is concerned with putting right the wreckage. And that this is what it is about, we can see if we come to the climax of this part two, uh where it points out that even creation itself, not us merely as individuals, but creation itself, has been subjected to vanity, to frustration. Nature never really realizing what originally it was designed to realize.
It is in bondage to corruption. It is experiencing the pains of childbirth, says Paul. What will emerge, of course, one day is a creation that is delivered from its bondage to corruption, delivered from frustration, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. And therefore, creation, gentlemen, is waiting for you. And me, of course. The first caretaker of creation was Adam, made to have dominion.
He failed and brought in wreckage. Why doesn't God immediately release creation? Because he's waiting for people that are trained, sanctified, and glorified, and able to take over the administration of Chri- of creation, and indeed of the universe, with Christ. Hence this present time and the seriousness and the importance and the wonder of the way God has designed to put right the wreckage in us that Adam caused, and to bring us to that state of glory where we shall be competent with Christ to take over a restored creation.
So, when we come to the climax here in the second great part of Romans, it is not merely that we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. Notice that future tense, we shall be saved from the wrath of God. But here there is much more. We're going to be conformed to the image of God's Son. Do you see? The wreckage more than put right. And here, let me stress this morning, as we summarize these things, the special, uh, um, emphasis on the Holy Spirit at the end of this great part two.
It is the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, says Paul in Romans eight, who delivers us from the law of sin and death. Not our own struggles to keep that law and avoid its penalties, but the spirit of life, a new life put within us by the Holy Spirit. It's the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. That same spirit is said in Romans eight to guide us.
And there it's not merely speaking that at the Lord's Supper you have to wait until the Lord's Spirit guides you to give out a hymn or say something or other. Isn't talking about that. It's talking of the Holy Spirit's guidance of us in our day-to-day lives and activities and practices. Is the voice that witnesses within, don't do that. That's not fitting for a child of God. That won't do. You better start repenting about that attitude. Guiding us. Not now simply by a set of rules, but by his own gracious and holy presence and the power of this new life within.
Notice then the contrast between that first part and this second, when it comes to our relationship with the law. The first part emphasized the fact that we are justified by faith without the deeds of the law. This part reminds us that while we are justified apart from the works of the law, it is God's intention and goal that the righteousness of the law shall be fulfilled in us.
The notion that because we're justified by faith and therefore shall not come into judgment, we are free to carry on, and it doesn't really matter if we sin, because after all, we're going to be saved from the wrath, so it doesn't really matter how we behave in business or in the family. The whole purpose of our salvation is that the righteous demand of the law shall be fulfilled in us. Notice how, uh, who walk now, not in the strength of our own powers and resolve, but to walk and live by the gracious power of the Holy Spirit within us.
But do notice that that thi- that the righteous requirement of the law being fulfilled in the power of the Spirit who lives within. That's in this second bit, not in that first bit. In our preaching of the gospel, it is important that we understand it, even if our congregations don't. Okay, it's okay to talk to the man who's immoral or drunken or this, that, and the other, that if you trust Christ, he'll help you to lead a better life. Well, that's perfectly true and sometimes appropriate to say.
But we who ought to know our gospel well and know what dosage to give to what patients, so to speak, to give the analogy, should know the difference. What this man needs is to be saved from the wrath of God. That's number one. And there it isn't a question of his improvement. For lots of folks imagine that way. They imagine that God has given his, his son, and here we are wrecks, but Christ is the good mechanic, and he's helping us to put us right. Of course, we can't yet say whether we shall pass muster at the end.
When the great engineer comes to look at our lives, he mightn't be satisfied, but we hope Christ will have helped us to do as good a job as we possibly can, so that even God couldn't find too much fault with us and ought to let us through. That is a damnable heresy, that is. Christ hasn't come to help people, to improve their lives, so that, well, by the time the final judgment comes, well, if they're not a hundred percent, they might be yet ninety percent anyway, or seventy five percent, or if God is as kind as university professors, forty percent, then let them through.
That isn't the gospel. And sooner or later, we need to make the gospel clear, that when it bec- becomes a question of being saved from the wrath of God and knowing ourselves accepted, it is as the hymn puts it, just as I am, without one plea, but that the Savior died for me. As I stand in all my wreckage, under the wrath of God, the first thing I need is not to put the wreckage right. The first thing I need is to be reconciled to God, which I can be through the death of Christ.
And as I stand in my wreckage, no, I shall not come into condemnation. Why? Because Christ died for me as the propitiation. That's first. The second thing is, of course, the other side. Yes, Christ has come to put right the wreckage. That's the second bit. And, uh, here it is that the righteousness of the law, its righteous demand, shall be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. But here again we notice the aspect of salvation.
It is not that, well, now you are forgiven, you are certain you shall not come, uh, into condemnation, you are, uh, free, you shall not suffer the wrath of God. Now do your best to be a good Christian. It isn't that. That's only half the gospel. The gospel is now you are saved. You shall not come into condemnation. You shall never experience the wrath of God. What is more, you don't merely have to try your best to be good. God has given us, and this is the miracle of his grace, his Holy Spirit within, as a free gift, and not merely as a power, but as a person, to live within us, a new life.
What is more, the Holy Spirit has in view God's purpose for us. And God's purpose is spelled out in Romans eight, is it not? And he called those he justified. Those he justified, them also he glorified. In what sense glorify? It is God's intention that we shall be conformed to the image of his son. We, of course, on our side, are to keep that objective in view and aim at it.
As Paul says, that I might know Christ, the power of his resurrection and fellowship in his sufferings. But we're not left to our own in that thing, you'll see. For we're told that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. And we ourselves are so mixed up and so short-sighted and don't really know what is for our best very often, that if it were less left to us and our prayers, we, the result might be less than adequate. What shall I pray for?
Would you happen to know? I'm talking about me now. What do I know next now need? Do I need a period of sunshine and success and a feeling of progress? Oh, I'm getting better every day. Is that what I need? Or do I really need now a period of testing and trial and difficulty and pain if I'm to get moved forward? If I'm going to be re- released from the old set habits and ideas, and be led on to some bigger things, what would I need exactly?
Would you happen to know? I don't. But thank God we have the Holy Spirit within, who makes intercession for us according to God, and interprets our own prayers, and moves us in our prayers, according to the great purpose that God has in view. Like the servant, servant that Abraham sent to get a bride for Isaac. When the dear lady said, yes, yeah, I'm prepared and I want to go. The servant didn't just leave her and say, well, do your best to come across, and our address is this when you come.
You'll find our tent is is this and this and this, and that's where it'll be, so w- you'll you'll be sure of welcome, but turn up when you can. No, no. The servant had camels and guided the dear lady all the way, all the long journey, until he presented her to Isaac, you see, his master's son. So does the Holy Spirit. This gentleman is gospel, glorious gospel. And we need to get hold of it because our natural temperament very often is this. Being assured that we shall not come into judgment, that we shall be saved from the wrath of God.
And so often we fall back into just trying to do the best we can and become legalists, keeping rules. Instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to develop his new life. That new life, of course, will under God's, uh, help and guidance, lead to the righteous requirement of the law being fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. These, therefore, are very important things, are they not? And we saw last week how wide the objective is that we keep the re-righteous requirement of the law, we do so under the terms not of the old covenant, merely a set of rules graven on stone, holy and important as they were, but under the terms of the new covenant, in which the Holy Spirit writes those laws on our very hearts.
This, uh, passage to the second great, uh, uh, um, part of Romans ends with a triumphant climax. You notice the emphasis of the Holy Spirit that we have just been mentioning. And now finally, the absolute assurance of salvation once more, based on what this time? Well, based this time on the character of God and the love of God, as it was in chapter five. so here. And we're, uh, taught to argue that he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?
Paul doesn't then say, and because of that, we know that God will shelter us and save us from tribulation, anguish, peril, sword. No, indeed not. Paul, in his life, experienced endless tribulation, persecution, hunger, imprisonment, and so forth. Not saved from those things, saved in them. In this confidence that neither things present nor things to come shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
None of us have traveled very far yet. We've got a lot of traveling to do, haven't we? Where do you suppose heaven is? Wherever, how far ever we have to travel, both now and eternally, we may know this, that nothing in God's created universe, here or elsewhere, material, physical, or spirit powers, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and therefore we are more than conquerors. And what we've been trying to do, I repeat, is not to play crossword puzzles with the word of God, but to understand the different aspects of our salvation and how carefully they are delineated here in Paul's letter.
So, to have one final, uh, uh, uh, um, uh, contrast. In part one, where it was a question of Christ saving us from the wrath of God, the expression is that Christ died for us. Died for the ungodly. Here in part two, it's not so much that Christ died for us, but that we died with him and were raised with him.
He thus delivers us from the bondage of sin and death and of the law. We rise in our baptism to walk in newness of life, that is, in the realities of the new life given us by the Spirit of God. Now we must move on to the third major, uh, section, third major part. The failure of Israel's faith and service, which now becomes the major theme of part three. And the question is, why is that mentioned?
Space in the book of the Romans at a- is at a premium, you know, like building sites in Belfast now. What ho? You therefore have to account for anything that c- that is in Romans. Why on earth is that here? It's not always apparent to those who preach the gospel why three whole chapters should be spent on Israel. What's that got to do with the gospel of justification by faith or sanctification in Christ? Why is it here?
Well, now for two reasons, quite clearly. One, our gospel, so chapter one tells us, is based on the Old Testament prophets. The gospel is not a philosophy thought up by Paul or anybody else. It's the full flowering of a historical process. And long before the coming of our Lord, God was inspiring a whole succession of prophets to prophesy...
what the Messiah would do when he came. More than that, God was spending centuries before Christ came... laying down the moral law. How shall people know how grievous sinners they are unless God reveals his law to them? And God also spent centuries protesting through Israel against all idolatrous interpretations of the universe.
For the ancient nations had fallen into idolatry. Military. Instead of worshiping the Creator, says Romans one, they worshipped and served the creature. It's not only that they worshipped beetles, or cows, or crocodiles, or things. Though some in our world still do. In India, they have the t- the elephant god, don't they, Lotta?
Very curious god. But people deified the powers, the forces of nature. So they deified the sun, made it into a god. And they deified the moon, made that into a god. And the stars. They deified the forces of, of fertility and reproduction. Baal, the god Baal, Baal was the god of fertility, sometimes worshipped under the form of a bull because of a bull's prodigious fertility.
And then they worshipped the storm, the tsunamis and all the rest of it. Worshiping a create- creature rather than the creator. And incidentally, gentlemen, if you're talking to materialist atheists, do it very respectfully and gently, but suggest to them that they are old idolaters, just as bad as the ancients were. The atheist, materialist atheist, of course, doesn't have a few gods lined up in his, his lounge, no.
But if you ask them, what are the ultimate forces in the universe that control everything, us included. The modern atheist will reply just like the ancients replied, only with more sophistication. We'll say the ultimate forces that control us? Well, the weak atomic power, the strong atomic power, electromagnetism, gravity, the forces of biology. They are the ultimate powers.
In other words, he is taking the powers of nature, important as they are, now making them the ultimate that control everything. That is idolatry. And will reap eventually, when it's taken to its logical conclusion, the inevitable results that Romans one talks about. God raised up Israel as a protest against idolatry and as a witness to the one true God. What on earth use would it have been for God to send his son into the world, proclaiming this is the son of God, if people didn't know what the term God meant?
Or who thought like the Greeks of thousands of gods, all with sons and daughters and things. God spent centuries, therefore, witnessing through Israel to the futility and absurdity of all idolatrous interpretations of the universe. Israel failed on many an occasion, of course, and to cure them of their tendency to idolatry themselves, had to send the whole nation off, the ten tribes to Assyria and the two tribes to Babylon.
In the mercies of God, that cured some of them. So that when the people came back under Ezra and Nehemiah, uh, there's a seat here, my good sir. Uh, when Ezra and Nehemiah brought the people back from Babylon and rebuilt the temple, thereafter, as far as the Jews were concerned, there were no more idols. There was a period under Antiochus Epiphanes when, uh, an altar, uh, an idol was erected in the court of the temple by the foreign emperor, uh, which was the abomination of desolation, as Daniel describes it, to which our Lord referred as a prototype of what shall be at the end stage.
And at the end stage, the world will be marked by a dictator who sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Notice that description. This is the full flowering of idolatry. Full flowering of the devil's lie to Adam and Eve, you shall be as God. Man aping God. But apart from that, uh, brief period under the Seleucid kings, uh, there were no idols in the temple.
And when our Lord came to the temple at Jerusalem, sure he had to turn out the money changers. They perverted it to making a business of making money. There were no idols there. God sent his son in the fullness of time, when Israel had learned not to compromise with idolatry, so that when our blessed Lord claimed to be the Son of God, it should be interpreted as to the reality it is, and not in a compromise with the idolatrous notion of the pagans around. Gentlemen, it is part of your basic apologetics to this world to observe these things.
For you will be told by super cynics, Christians, well, you create God in your own image, of course, and you, you think of him as a, as a super duper man. And then they will add, thinking themselves very modern, but repeating an ancient notion among the Greeks, that if the ele- elephants got round to thinking about God, they would conceive of God as a very big elephant. And all your ideas of God are anthropomorphic, they say, unless you yourselves have invented them anyway. How do you know that God isn't your invention? The idea of God isn't a human invention.
What exactly is meant when the Bible talks about the Son of God? This is where our history becomes exceedingly important. And all those preparatory years, where God was training Israel to get hold of this notion of the one true God, creator of heaven and earth, as distinct from all idolatrous interpretations into which the rest of the nations had fallen. So, one reason why the great discussion goes on now to chapters nine, ten, and eleven about Israel's failure.
Because it was Israel to whom, and through whom the Old Testament revelation of God was given. Israel, who was marked out by God's prophets as being the nation through whom the Messiah would come. By Paul's day, the majority in Israel, and certainly the establishment, had rejected Jesus as the Christ. And to this day, the majority of Jews still reject him. We need to know why, don't we?
For if the nation appointed by God to introduce Christ reject Jesus as the Christ. How can we Gentiles believe he is the Christ? There is a second reason why Paul must discuss it. God created the universe, the world, and said it was very good. The thing was wrecked through Adam's sin. Very good, but the call of Abram out of the nations was now one tremendous example, in one sense the beginning of God's great plan of redemption to put right what Adam had put wrong.
Oh, ho. Well, if that was what it was. And bad enough if Adam went wrong. But if now one of the major parts of God's scheme of redemption has gone wrong. Where does that land us up in our preaching of the gospel? You see, I don't, I don't know what you're getting at, this business of Israel being a part of God's redemption. Oh? Now, let me do a little cross-examination, if I may. You believe you are, uh, redeemed, yes?
By the blood of the Lamb, yes? I say, what does that mean? Well, you say, now you see, at the Pa- Oh, you're going to talk about the Passover? As though that were some example of, um, of the death of Christ. Now you're saved. You are? Was it just you that thought up that analogy? No, no, you say it's in the Bible, it's in the Old Testament. Oh. Was that a sort of a happy accident it was, is in the Bible? No, you say the thing is ins- I see. The thing is inspired, and you are holding to you that all that with Abraham and then with Moses and the redemption out of Israel was deliberately designed by God as a part of his great scheme of redemption.
Oh, I see. And what if the mo- modern rabbis should tell you that this is a lot of nonsense, and that Jesus isn't the Lamb of God? If the nation that God raised up to be the great preparatory way of redemption, if that has gone wrong, then what hope is there for our redemption anyway? We cannot just dismiss the history of Judaism, therefore, as though it didn't really matter, and we can get on in Christianity even if Judaism is a complete ruination.
That means that we must give attention, serious attention, to God's original purpose in raising up Israel. So the argument of Romans nine. First of all, Paul's grief, sorrow of heart, over the grievous state of the majority of Paul's kinsmen according to the flesh.
That is the literal physical nation of Israel. Notice the phrase, my kinsmen according to the flesh. Physical Israelite. Israel as a nation, a political entity. Got great grief, grief of heart for them. And now he tells you the original wonder of the role that God gave to Israel.
We do well to digest it. The role given to the physical nation of Israel as a political entity. Romans nine, therefore. Whose is the adoption, Old English, of course, placing as sons. You say half a minute, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute, Paul.
You're not telling us that Israelites were sons of God, are you? Thought we were the sons of God because we've been born again. What do you mean that they were placed as sons? Well, yes, if you doubt that, you better read Deuteronomy. Where God bewails the behavior of his sons and comes near to repudiating them. Now, you may well argue that the use of the word son carries various connotations and doesn't mean with Israel what it would mean in all its fullness in New Testament times.
But notice it does denote a relationship. And Israel were God's sons in the sense in which the Gentiles weren't. Whose is the adoption? And the glory. We must not belittle the terms. When the tabernacle was built, the very Shekinah glory of God descended on it.
When Solomon built the temple, the Shekinah glory of God so filled the place, the priest couldn't stand and had to get out. This is not fable, gentlemen. This was utter reality. That the God of heaven, in some sense, presenced himself among ancient Israel in tabernacle. And then in temple.
I know you will tell me that according to Ezekiel, there came the time, and Ezekiel witnessed it, when the glory departed from the temple. That doesn't undermine, it simply stresses the fact that originally the glory of God was in tabernacle and temple. God making himself known there, in protest to all the idolatry of the surrounding nations.
Now, some of the surrounding nations were exceedingly sophisticated. Witness the ancient, uh, uh, Babylonians, Hammurabi and all that, thousands of years before Moses. And witness the Assyrians with their art and architecture, oh, and the Babylonians, wow. Not to talk of the Greeks, and then the Romans. Compared with what that simple pastoral nation seemed an- a non-entity to many. But it is the statement of a- a scripture and our Christian belief.
That whereas Israel may not have been anywhere near so sophisticated as other great empires, they were marked by this reality. The Old Testament still stands unique, you know. Mm. And the notion that monotheism is the result of evolution is sheer nonsense, historical nonsense. I know it is taught. People like to think that just as there was physical evolution, so when it came to theology, theology evolved.
And you started off, mm, you'll see by animism, worshiping the spirits in the trees and in the buffaloes and in your grandparents and things like that. And then from a- animism, you evolve to henotheism by various stages. That means one god, uh, so pot- sorry, to polytheism, many gods, polytheism. And then you evolved a bit further to henotheism, one God per nation, different God each time, of course. And then you evolved beyond that to monotheism, the notion that one God in the whole universe.
Ha. And beyond that, if you have any sense, you'll evolve further to atheism. What? It's a lot of nonsense, that is. And the evidence is there in your Old Testament, where it is pointed out that Israel began as a protest against the idolatry to worship the one true God. You say they invented the idea. They didn't. They were always compromising it, sliding away from it, going and behaving like the Gentiles, and had to be dragged back by the roots of their hair by a whole succession of prophets.
Israel did not invent the idea of monotheism. Witness their. own history. Where did they get it from? Well, the Bible's answer is that God revealed himself, the God of glory appeared to Abram when he dwelt amongst old idolaters and brought him out. Israel was to be a testimony to the one true God. And then there were the covenants. The covenant at Sinai. And the moral nature of that covenant, gentlemen, don't overlook it.
Because with many idolatrous nations, their gods had to be kept up in the style they were accustomed to, of course, uh, do you see, with endless sacrifices. And if you wanted your gods to behave and, uh, be on your side against the enemy, you, you, you, you, uh, help them in that regard with endless sacrifices and special sacrifices. Morals had very little to do with religion in the ancient world. If you wanted to know about morality in ancient Greece, for instance, you wouldn't have gone to the temple and the priests.
You would have gone to the philosophers. And when religion really gets hold of people and ritualism, you will find the same phenomenon under the skin. But ritualism is a way of keeping God on your side. And religion has little to do, very often, with morality. In Israel, it was different. The covenant of God with Moses at Sinai, pray, notice the moral. Of course there was ritual.
There was the giving of the law. Then there was the service of God. That was a tremendous witness. You came to the, the tabernacle or the temple in good days, not when Israel were slipping and compromising and all the rest of it. You came to Israel's temple in the good days, there was no image of God inside it to start with, which was distinctly odd compared with other nations. There were no child sacrifices, as with the Moabites and those who worshipped the god Moloch, slaughtering their babes and children to appease supposedly angry gods.
Indeed, you'll find in the prophets and in the historical books gods tremendous protests against passing your children through the fire, which means sacrificing them to the pagan god Moloch. And in the temple, except in the days of Hophni and Phineas, those couple of rogues, there were no temple prostitutes, gentlemen. For many pagan religions, religion is got all mixed up with temple prostitutes.
I remember being, years ago, on a tour in Greece, and we were taken to Corinth and to old Corinth, and uh, there we stood in what was originally the agora, the marketplace, and the Greek guide pointed out to this heap here over here, had been stones, of course, she said that was the speaker's platform. She said, you know, Saint Paul would have stood on there to, to address the crowd. And turning around rather dramatically, she pointed to the hill, Acrocorinth behind, you see the great hill, remains of a temple there.
She said, there was a temple up there to Aphrodite, you'll see, with a thousand priestesses open to all comers. In the ca- in the cause of religion, if you please. The defying of sex. Our modern world gets very near it. Said the guide, I think Saint Paul had a hard time when he came to Corinth. I thought so too, and went behind one of the other ruins and got out my Bible and read it.
A tremendous courage of a man. To dare to come to a sophisticated city like Corinth that would make Belfast look like a slum, with its marble paved main road and its statues and its pillars and its wealth, its tradition of education and its sophisticated vice. And he said to his converts later on, as he wrote to them, not this, that, and the other, perverts, homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators.
Such were some of you. Yeah, in Israel, in its better days, and certainly in the time of our Lord, cured of idolatry, there were no temple prostitutes in the temple. And then, of course, there were the, uh, uh, uh, uh, the promises and the fathers who prophesied of the coming of the Messiah, of whom is Christ according to the flesh.
And Paul hastens to add a tribute to his deity, Christ, Christ who is over all, God blessed forever. Christ is God blessed forever. And he came through the Jews, did he not? Because of their testimony, they had an impact, limited maybe, they certainly had an impact. Remember the story in Acts of the Ethiopian Chancellor of the Exchequer who had come up to Jerusalem to worship.
Why had he come up to Jerusalem to worship? Because Jerusalem stood out unique among the nations at that time still, for a temple where there was no image of a god, where they did have a law, and it was a moral law. And the priests were supposed to teach it. And the law was taught in the synagogues. And the chancellor came, not merely as a tourist, but on the way home he had bought a copy of the law of the Old Testament. He was reading in Isaiah, in fact. The value of the scriptures given to Israel.
In the synagogues in the Acts of the Apostles in pagan cities, you'll find it more than once, uh, referring to the God-fearers. They were Gentiles, most of them women, who used to attend the synagogue. Why? Because they saw the superiority of the Jewish, uh, Bible. They regarded it as a kind of philosophy, as distinct from the nonsense of their myths about the gods and goddesses. And so it attracted people, particularly the more intelligent folks. There weren't so many men came because, you see, well, hmm, if you were got converted to Judaism, you had to get circumcised, and that for adult men was difficult, you see.
But women came, and even if they didn't actually become Jewesses, they so frequently frequented the synagogue, they were called God-fearers. It was from among them, see Acts thirteen, for instance, that many of the early c- converts, Gentile converts came. First attracted to God through the witness of the Jewish synagogue. We do well not to forget this gentleman, lest we should be conceited in our own Gentile minds.
The role that Israel had in God's scheme of redemption, the part he used them to play in his self-revelation in the Old Testament, that is the basis upon which our Christian gospel proceeds. And you can hear the tears in Po- Paul's voice. And it's all gone wrong, he says. And it nearly broke his heart.
As it would break us if we had any true understanding of the situation. Has it gone wrong? Has the first part of God's redemption gone astray? And the answer, you know, of course, what Ga- Paul is going to give him, going to give. Of course it has not gone so wrong that it is completely ruined. And why not? And what evidence have you got?
Well, that we shall have to consider in our next session. Gentlemen, it's time for refreshment.
