There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
For the safe and righteous continuation of our civil government, that a blessing may attend it, that peace and truth may be established in our days and secured to posterity, and that the hopes of our adversaries and all their aiders and abettors may be extinguished.
Lord, preserve to us the lamp that you have prepared for your Anointed, Psalm 132:17(ESV) that the next generation may know you, even the children yet unborn, that they may set their hope in God and keep his commandments. Psalm 78:6-7(ESV)
Let the gospel-believing church abide before God forever: Appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over it, so we will ever sing praises to your name. Psalm 61:7-8(ESV) Thus, let the Lord save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and the offspring of your servants shall inherit it, and those who love your name shall dwell in it. Psalm 69:35-36(ESV)
Let their design who would choose a leader to go back to Egypt, Numbers 14:4(ESV) be again defeated; and let not the mortal wound that has been given to the beast be healed anymore. Revelation 13:11-12(ESV)
Let our eyes see Jerusalem, the city of our appointed feasts, an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent: Let none of its stakes be plucked up, nor any of its cords be broken, but let the LORD in majesty be for us a place of broad rivers and streams; for the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king, he will save us. Isaiah 33:20-22(ESV)
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
Mark 1:35
After this full day—and what a full day it was, what a heavy ministry our Lord had that day with all the healing He did in the evening!—Mark records that early in the morning, before it was daylight, Jesus went out on the mountainside, and there, by Himself, He prayed. But even there He was not safe. His disciples interrupted this communion, told Him that everyone was looking for Him. And Jesus reveals the heart and substance of His prayer in what He says in reply: Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. This is what He was praying about—that God would lead Him, doors would be opened, and hearts prepared in the cities to which He would go next.
Why did Jesus seek the Father’s face like this, in these hours of pressure? The only answer we can come to is that He wants to make clear that the authority He had was not coming from Him. This is what our Lord is trying to get across to us so continually in the Scriptures—that it was not His authority by which He acted; He had to receive it from the Father.
I do not know any more confusing doctrine in Christendom today—one that has robbed the Scriptures of their authority and power in the minds and hearts of countless people—than the idea that Jesus acted by virtue of the fact that He was the Son of God, that the authority and power He demonstrated were due to His own deity. Yet He Himself takes great pains to tell us this is not the case. The Son can do nothing by himself (John 5:19). Why do we ignore His explanation and insist that it is He, acting as the Son of God? He tells us that it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work(John 14:10). And all the power that Jesus manifested had to come to Him constantly from the one who dwelt within Him.
Jesus stresses this because this is what He wants us to learn. We are to operate on the same basis. Our response to the normal, ordinary demands of life and the power to cope with those demands must come from our reliance upon Him at work within us. This is the secret: All power to live the Christian life comes not from us, doing our dead-level best to serve God, but from Him, granted to us moment by moment as the demand is made upon us. Power is given to those who follow, who obey. The Father is at work in the Son; the Son is at work in us. As we learn this, then we are given power to meet the demands and the needs that are waiting for us in the ministry yet to come.
Thank You, Father, that the same power is available to me today, making me ready to be your instrument in any and every situation in which demand is laid upon me.
Life Application
What is the source of authority and power we need to respond to the ordinary and extraordinary demands of life? Shall we try to wing it, or expectantly pray for this gift?
16As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” 18At once they left their nets and followed him.
19When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
21They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. 23Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, 24“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
25“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” 26The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
27The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.” 28News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.
29As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her. 31So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.
32That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33The whole town gathered at the door, 34and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
35Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
38Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” 39So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
If you’ve ever told a child, “I know I promised, but…” you probably remember their look of suspicious disappointment. The next time you said, “I promise,” you knew they might not believe you. As we turn to the book of Exodus, we come to an important event that shows us why we can always trust God’s promises. Seeing this clearly displayed in the Old Testament increases our ability to trust God today.Approximately 400 years after God made a covenant with Abram, He fulfilled that promise by bringing the Israelites out of Egypt. Exodus describes this as God remembering His covenant (v. 5). Now let’s be clear, God doesn’t “remember” because He forgot. While He may take His time, He always “remembers.” But from Israel’s perspective, it must have felt like God had forgotten them! Imagine waiting for 400 years to see if God would do what He promised. This feeling would have become more pronounced as the Egyptians began to enslave the Israelites. Forced to do hard labor, they suffered greatly. Then, as their population increased, they faced genocidal threats (Ex. 1:22). But in His time, God decided to take action. He had witnessed the oppression of His people at the hand of the Egyptians (6:6). He would free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt with powerful demonstrations of His might (v. 6). He did this because he made a covenant with Abraham and reaffirmed it to his descendants (v. 8).The exodus proved that God’s promises can always be trusted. This is important because God has made promises to everyone who trusts in Him. He promises that He will deliver us from bondage to sin (Acts 26:18). It may take a lifetime, but He will do it as He promised!
Go Deeper Have you grown weary of waiting for God to deliver you? Have you struggled to remain confident that He has not forgotten you? How does this passage in Exodus increase your confidence in God’s promises?
Pray with Us Father, what a joy it is to know that Your promises are faithful and true! You delivered the Israelis from slavery in Egypt, and You deliver us from slavery to sin. We praise you today. Hallelujah!
“The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it” – Genesis 28:13
No promise is of private interpretation: it belongs not to one saint but to all believers. If, my brother, thou canst in faith lie down upon a promise and take thy rest thereon, it is thine. Where Jacob “lighted” and tarried and rested, there he took possession. Stretching his weary length upon the ground, with the stones of that place for his pillows, he little fancied that he was thus entering into ownership of the land; yet so it was. He saw in his dream that wondrous ladder which for all true believers unites earth and heaven, and surely where the foot of the ladder stood he must have a right to the soil, for other wise he could not reach the divine stairway. All the promises of God are “Yea” and “Amen” in Christ Jesus, and as He is ours, every promise is ours if we will but lie down upon it in restful faith. Come, weary one, use thy LORD’s words as thy pillows. Lie down in peace. Dream only of Him. Jesus is thy ladder of light. See the angels coming and going upon Him between thy soul and thy God, and be sure that the promise is thine own God-given portion and that it will not be robbery for thee to take it to thyself, as spoken specially to thee.
By simple definition, therefore introduces a result, consequence, or conclusion based on what has been established previously. It seems unlikely that Paul is referring to the immediately preceding text. He has just finished lamenting the continued problem of sin in a believer’s life, including his own. It is surely not on the basis of that truth that he confidently declares that believers are no longer under divine condemnation. One might expect rather that any further sin would deserve some sort of further judgment. But Paul makes clear that such is not the case with our gracious God. It seems probable that therefore marks a consequent conclusion from the entire first seven chapters, which focus primarily on justification by faith alone, made possible solely on the basis of and by the power of God’s grace. Accordingly, chapter 8 marks a major change in the focus and flow of the epistle. At this point the apostle begins to delineate the marvelous results of justification in the life of the believer. He begins by explaining, as best as possible to finite minds, some of the cardinal truths of salvation (no condemnation, as well as justification, substitution, and sanctification). God’s provision of salvation came not through Christ’s perfect teaching or through His perfect life but through His perfect sacrifice on the cross. It is through Christ’s death, not His life, that God provides the way of salvation. For those who place their trust in Christ and in what He has done on their behalf there is therefore now no condemnation. The Greek word katakrima (condemnation) appears only in the book of Romans, here and in 5:16, 18. Although it relates to the sentencing for a crime, its primary focus is not so much on the verdict as on the penalty that the verdict demands. As Paul has already declared, the penalty, or condemnation, for sin is death (6:23). Paul here announces the marvelous good news that for Christians there will be no condemnation, neither sentencing nor punishment for the sins that believers have committed or will ever commit. Ouketi (no) is an emphatic negative adverb of time and carries the idea of complete cessation. In His parable about the king who forgave one of his slaves an overwhelming debt (Matt. 18:23–27), Jesus pictured God’s gracious and total forgiveness of the sins of those who come to Him in humble contrition and faith. That is the heart and soul of the gospel—that Jesus completely and permanently paid the debt of sin and the penalty of the law (which is condemnation to death) for every person who humbly asks for mercy and trusts in Him. Through the apostle John, God assures His children that “if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:1–2). Jesus not only pays the believer’s debt of sin but cleanses him “from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Still more amazingly, He graciously imputes and imparts to each believer His own perfect righteousness: “For by one offering He [Christ] has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14; cf. Rom. 5:17; 2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:9). More even than that, Jesus shares His vast heavenly inheritance with those who come to Him in faith (Eph. 1:3, 11, 14). It is because of such immeasurable divine grace that Paul admonishes Christians to be continually “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12). Having been qualified by God the Father, we will never, under any circumstance, be subject to divine condemnation. How blessed to be placed beyond the reach of condemnation! The truth that there can never be the eternal death penalty for believers is the foundation of the eighth chapter of Romans. As Paul asks rhetorically near the end of the chapter, “If God is for us, who is against us?” (v. 31), and again, “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies” (v. 33). If the highest tribunal in the universe justifies us, who can declare us guilty? It is extremely important to realize that deliverance from condemnation is not based in the least measure on any form of perfection achieved by the believer. He does not attain the total eradication of sin during his earthly life. It is that truth that Paul establishes so intensely and poignantly in Romans 7. John declares that truth as unambiguously as possible in his first epistle: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). The Christian’s conflict with sin does not end until he goes to be with the Lord. Nevertheless, there is still no condemnation—because the penalty for all the failures of his life has been paid in Christ and applied by grace. It is also important to realize that deliverance from divine condemnation does not mean deliverance from divine discipline. “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6). Nor does deliverance from God’s condemnation mean escape from our accountability to Him: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7).
THE REASON FOR FREEDOM—JUSTIFICATION
for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (8:1b–2)
As noted at the beginning of the previous section, the therefore that introduces verse 1 refers back to the major theme of the first seven chapters of the epistle—the believer’s complete justification before God, graciously provided in response to trust in the sacrificial death and resurrection of His Son. The divine condemnation from which believers are exonerated (8:1a) is without exception or qualification. It is bestowed on those who are in Christ Jesus, in other words, on every true Christian. Justification completely and forever releases every believer from sin’s bondage and its penalty of death (6:23) and thereby fits him to stand sinless before a holy God forever. It is that particular aspect of justification on which Paul focuses at the beginning of chapter 8. Paul’s use of the first person singular pronouns (I and me) in 7:7–25 emphasizes the sad reality that, in this present life, no Christian, not even an apostle, is exempt from struggles with sin. In the opening verses of chapter 8, on the other hand, Paul emphasizes the marvelous reality that every believer, even the weakest and most unproductive, shares in complete and eternal freedom from sin’s condemnation. The holiest of believers are warned that, although they are no longer under sin’s slavish dominion, they will experience conflicts with it in this present life. And the weakest of believers are promised that, although they still stumble and fall into sin’s power in their flesh, they will experience ultimate victory over sin in the life to come. The key to every aspect of salvation is in the simple but infinitely profound phrase in Christ Jesus. A Christian is a person who is in Christ Jesus. Paul has already declared that “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death,” and that “therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:3–5). Being a Christian is not simply being outwardly identified with Christ but being part of Christ, not simply of being united with Him but united in Him. Our being in Christ is one of the profoundest of mysteries, which we will not fully understand until we meet Him face-to-face in heaven. But Scripture does shed light on that marvelous truth. We know that we are in Christ spiritually, in a divine and permanent union. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive,” Paul explains (1 Cor. 15:22). Believers are also in Christ in a living, participatory sense. “Now you are Christ’s body,” Paul declares in that same epistle, “and individually members of it” (12:27). We are actually a part of Him and, in ways that are unfathomable to us now, we work when He works, grieve when He grieves, and rejoice when He rejoices. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,” Paul assures us, “whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). Christ’s own divine life pulses through us. Many people are concerned about their family heritage, about who their ancestors were, where they lived, and what they did. For better or worse, we are all life-linked physically, intellectually, and culturally to our ancestors. In a similar, but infinitely more important way, we are linked to the family of God because of our relationship to His Son, Jesus Christ. It is for that reason that every Christian can say, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). God’s Word makes clear that every human being is a descendant of Adam and has inherited Adam’s fallen nature. It makes just as clear that every true believer becomes a spiritual descendant of Jesus Christ, God’s true Son, and is thereby adopted into the heavenly Father’s own divine household as a beloved child. More than just being adopted, we inherit the very life of God in Christ. Martin Luther said,
It is impossible for a man to be a Christian without having Christ, and if he has Christ, he has at the same time all that is in Christ. What gives peace to the conscience is that by faith our sins are no more ours, but Christ’s, upon whom God hath laid them all; and that, on the other hand, all Christ’s righteousness is ours, to whom God hath given it. Christ lays His hand upon us, and we are healed. He casts His mantle upon us, and we are clothed; for He is the glorious Savior, blessed for ever. (Cited in Robert Haldane, An Exposition of Romans; [reprint, McLean, Va.: McDonald, 1958], p. 312)
The relationship between God and His chosen people Israel was beautifully illustrated in the garment of the high priest. Over his magnificent robes he wore a breastplate in which twelve different precious stones were embedded, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Each stone was engraved with the name of the tribe it represented. When the high priest entered the Holy of Holies once each year on the Day of Atonement, he stood before God with those visual representations of all His people. That breastplate was a rich symbolism of Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest, standing before the Father making intercession on behalf of all those the Father has given Him (Heb. 7:24–25). In what is commonly called His high priestly prayer, Jesus prayed on behalf of those who belong to Him “that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me” (John 17:21). Luther also wrote,
Faith unites the soul with Christ as a spouse with her husband. Everything which Christ has becomes the property of the believing soul; everything which the soul has, becomes the property of Christ. Christ possesses all blessings and eternal life: they are thenceforward the property of the soul. The soul has all its iniquities and sins: they become thenceforward the property of Christ. It is then that a blessed exchange commences: Christ who is both God and man, Christ who has never sinned, and whose holiness is perfect, Christ the Almighty and Eternal, taking to Himself, by His nuptial ring of faith, all the sins of the believer, those sins are lost and abolished in Him; for no sins dwell before His infinite righteousness. Thus by faith the believer’s soul is delivered from sins and clothed with the eternal righteousness of her bridegroom Christ. (Cited in Haldane, Exposition of Romans, p. 313)
The phrase “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” appears at the end of verse 1 in the King James, but it is not found in the earliest manuscripts of Romans or in most modern translations. It is probable that a copyist inadvertently picked up the phrase from verse 4. Because the identical wording appears there, the meaning of the passage is not affected. The conjunction for, which here carries the meaning of because, leads into the reason there is no condemnation for believers: the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. Paul does not here use the term law in reference to the Mosaic law or to other divine commandments or requirements. He uses it rather in the sense of a principle of operation, as he has done earlier in the letter, where he speaks of “a law of faith” (3:27) and as he does in Galatians, where he speaks of “the law of Christ” (6:2). Those who believe in Jesus Christ are delivered from the condemnation of a lower divine law, as it were, by submitting themselves to a higher divine law. The lower law is the divine principle in regard to sin, the penalty for which is death, and the higher law is the law of the Spirit, which bestows life in Christ Jesus. But it should not be concluded that the law Paul is speaking of in this passage has no relationship to obedience. Obedience to God cannot save a person, because no person in his unredeemed sinfulness wants to obey God and could not obey perfectly even if he had the desire. But true salvation will always produce true obedience—never perfect in this life but nonetheless genuine and always present to some extent. When truly believed and received, the gospel of Jesus Christ always leads to the “obedience of faith” (Rom. 16:25–26). The coming kingdom age of Christ that Jeremiah predicted and of which the writer of Hebrews refers is far from lawless. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them upon their hearts” (Heb. 8:10; cf. Jer. 31:33). Release from the law’s bondage and condemnation does not mean release from the law’s requirements and standards. The higher law of the Spirit produces obedience to the lower law of duties. The freedom that Christ gives is complete and permanent deliverance from sin’s power and penalty (and ultimately from its presence). It also gives the ability to obey God. The very notion of a Christian who is free to do as he pleases is self-contradictory. A person who believes that salvation leads from law to license does not have the least understanding of the gospel of grace and can make no claim on Christ’s saviorhood and certainly no claim on His lordship. In speaking of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, Paul makes unambiguous later in this chapter that he is referring to the Holy Spirit. The Christian’s mind is set on the things of the Spirit (v. 6) and is indwelt and given life by the Holy Spirit (vv. 9–11). Paul summarized the working of those two laws earlier in the epistle: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). When Jesus explained the way of salvation to Nicodemus, He said, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). God “saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness,” Paul explains, “but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:5–6). It is the Holy Spirit who bestows and energizes spiritual life in the person who places his trust in Christ Jesus. Paul could not be talking of any spirit but the Holy Spirit, because only God’s Holy Spirit can bring spiritual life to a heart that is spiritually dead. The truths of Romans 7 are among the most depressing and heart-rending in all of Scripture, and it is largely for that reason that many interpreters believe they cannot describe a Christian. But Paul was simply being honest and candid about the frustrating and discouraging spiritual battles that every believer faces. It is, in fact, the most faithful and obedient Christian who faces the greatest spiritual struggles. Just as in physical warfare, it is those on the front lines who encounter the enemy’s most fierce attacks. But just as frontline battle can reveal courage, it can also reveal weaknesses and vulnerability. Even the most valiant soldier is subject to injury and discouragement. During his earthly life, the Christian will always have residual weaknesses from his old humanness, the old fleshly person he used to be. No matter how closely he walks with the Lord, he is not yet completely free from sin’s power. That is the discomfiting reality of Romans 7. But the Christian is no longer a slave to sin as he once was, no longer under sin’s total domination and control. Now he is free from sin’s bondage and its ultimate penalty. Satan, the world, and his own humanness still can cause him to stumble and falter, but they can no longer control or destroy him, because his new life in Christ is the very divine life of God’s own Spirit. That is the comforting truth of Romans 8. The story is told of a man who operated a drawbridge. At a certain time each afternoon, he had to raise the bridge for a ferry boat and then lower it quickly for a passenger train that crossed at high speed a few minutes later. One day the man’s young son was visiting his father at work and decided to go down below to get a better look at the ferry as it passed. Fascinated by the sight, he did not watch carefully where he was going and fell into the giant gears. One foot became caught and the boy was helpless to free himself. The father saw what happened but knew that if he took time to extricate his son, the train would plunge into to the river before the bridge could be lowered. But if he lowered the bridge to save the hundreds of passengers and crew members on the train, his son would be crushed to death. When he heard the train’s whistle, indicating it would soon reach the river, he knew what he had to do. His son was very dear to him, whereas all the people on the train were total strangers. The sacrifice of his son for the sake of the other people was an act of pure grace and mercy. That story portrays something of the infinitely greater sacrifice God the Father made when He sent His only beloved Son to earth to die for the sins of mankind—to whom He owed nothing but condemnation.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1991). Romans (Vol. 1, pp. 398–405). Moody Press.
No Condemnation
Romans 8:1–4
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Having surveyed the entire eighth chapter of Romans in our last study, we return now to the beginning of the chapter, concentrating on verses 1–4. The first verse tells us, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” This sentence is the theme of the chapter, as I said in the last study. Everything else flows from it. The rest of the chapter is basically an exposition of this one idea. But verse 1 is not only the theme of Romans 8. It is the theme of the entire Word of God, which is only another way of saying that it is the gospel. Indeed, it is the gospel’s very heart. This means that it is what Paul has been explaining all along. In Romans 1 he spoke of the gospel, saying that he was not ashamed of it “because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (v. 16). He spoke of the gospel again in Romans 3, adding that “now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known …” (v. 21). It is the same in Romans 5: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 1), and “Since we have been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” (v. 9). He ended that chapter by saying, “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (vv. 20–21). These are only a few of the many statements of the gospel that have occurred thus far in Romans, and Romans 8:1 is but another. Always it is the gospel. Paul seems never to have grown tired talking about it. Ah, but we do! Many of us find the gospel wearisome and grace boring. Why is that, do you suppose? Why are we so different from Paul at this point? I think it is because of what Jesus alluded to in speaking of the woman who anointed his feet with her tears and then wiped them with her hair. She had a sinful past, and those who knew it objected, saying to themselves, like the Pharisee: “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39). Jesus answered by telling of a man who had been forgiven a great debt and who therefore loved his benefactor greatly. Jesus’ point was that “he who has been forgiven little loves little” (v. 47). Isn’t that it? Isn’t it true that the reason grace means little to most of us is that we do not consider ourselves to be great sinners, desperately in need of forgiveness?
Four Great Words
We cannot appreciate or even understand what Paul is saying unless we recognize that we are sinners and that we have been saved only by the grace of God. This is taught by the four great words in verse 1.
Condemnation. I spoke about condemnation in the last study, saying that we have a hard time appreciating what this means because few of us have ever been found guilty in a court of law. “Condemnation,” as Leon Morris says, “is a forensic term which here includes both the sentence and the execution of the sentence.” But no human being has ever pronounced a sentence of “guilty” against most of us, and we think therefore that we are all basically fine people. We are not, of course. This is what Romans 1:18–3:20 has been teaching.
Now. “Now” is a time word, pointing to the change that has come about as the result of believers’ entering into the justification that Jesus Christ made possible by his death. We stood condemned by God and were due to suffer the penalty of an eternal death for our sins, the “wages of sin” being “death” (Rom. 6:23). But that has been changed now because of God’s great grace and favor to us.
No. This word is weak in the English translations. In our texts it is a simple negative, like most other negatives. In the Greek text “no” is strongly emphasized. First, it is not the simple negative ou but the compound and therefore stronger negative oude. Second, it occurs at the beginning of the sentence, which intensifies the negation. Commentators do not know how to render this well in English, but they write things like: “Not any therefore now of condemnation” and “Not only is the Christian not in a state of condemnation now, he never can be; it is impossible.”3 It is a very strong statement.
Therefore. The fourth great word in this sentence is “therefore.” To what does it refer? To the arguments immediately preceding this verse in chapter 7? To chapter 5 or chapter 3? Most agree that Paul’s “therefore” is inclusive, pointing back to the entire argument of the epistle thus far. It is because of God’s work in Jesus Christ and because of the application of it to us by the Holy Spirit that there is now “no condemnation.”
God’s Work, Not Ours
Here is a point at which we need to make sure we really understand what is being said. I have pointed out that there is no condemnation for us because of what God has done. But do we really believe that? Or do we still think that somehow, in some way, we are contributing to our salvation? What Paul writes is that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That is, there are two classes of human beings: those who are in Christ Jesus and who are therefore not under condemnation, and those who are not in Christ Jesus and who are therefore still under condemnation. What he is promising is for those in the first class only. But the question is: How do we get out of the one class and into the other. Is this something we do? Do we earn it? Do we attain it “by faith”? If you have understood what the apostle has been saying up to this point, you will know that it is none of the above. It is because of God’s work in joining us to Christ. This is what the last half of Romans 5 and almost the whole of Romans 6 is about. Here I must deal with a manuscript problem. Those who use the Authorized or King James text will notice the addition of the words “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” following the words “Christ Jesus” in verse 1. This is certainly an error, as even the famous Scofield Bible, which uses the King James text, acknowledges in a footnote. It is worth pointing this out because, if the clause is retained, it suggests exactly the opposite of what the text actually says. In its corrupt form the text reads, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (KJV), which seems to be saying that if we continue to lead a godly life “in the Spirit” we will not be condemned, but that if we fail to lead a godly life we will be. How did such a serious textual error come about? We do not know exactly, but it is not hard to imagine how this might have happened. For centuries before the invention of the printing press just prior to the Reformation, Bible manuscripts were copied by hand, and from time to time the copyists made errors, as we would have done ourselves. In the vast majority of cases the copyists were accurate. That is why we have such accurate texts today. Even where there are errors, we can correct them by comparing the errant copy with the multiplicity of other more perfect manuscripts. Still, mistakes were made, and this seems to have been the case here. We can imagine a weary monk working his way through the Book of Romans, perhaps early in the morning when he was still sleepy or else late at night. He has finished chapter 7 and begins chapter 8, writing, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.…” But at this point he either dozes off or perhaps, weary with the arduous work of copying, looks ahead to the end of the book to see how much more there is to do (he is only halfway through!). When he returns to his work his eye falls not on verse 2, where he should pick up, but on the latter half of verse 4, where he copies “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” This is a mistake, of course, a serious one, but it sounds right to him. It flows grammatically. So he continues by copying verse 2 and the verses after it. Does this mean that we cannot trust the Bible? No! There are only a handful of such problems, and besides, they are well known to those who work with Bible texts. They have been corrected. Nevertheless, in this case the problem existed for quite a long time. What I am saying is that these words do not belong. If they did, our escape from condemnation would last only as long as our next faltering step or sin; then we would be back under condemnation again. Thank God, salvation is not like that! Salvation is from God. It is by God. What the text says is that there is no condemnation for those who have been joined to Jesus Christ by God the Father through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit.
The Trinity at Work
Let me repeat that last statement: There is no condemnation for those who have been joined to Jesus Christ by God the Father through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit. I repeat this because it is a Trinitarian statement—it speaks of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—and because it is precisely in these terms that Paul goes on to explain what God has done for us and why “there is now no condemnation.” Can you see it in the text? After his opening statement in verse 1, Paul has two explanatory sentences, each beginning with the identical Greek word gar, translated either “because” or “for.” The New International Version obscures this a bit, since it translates the Greek word as “because” at the beginning of verse 2 and as “for” at the beginning of verse 3, and because it divides the second of Paul’s sentences (vv. 3–4) into two parts. But it is clear enough anyway. In verse 2 Paul says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because “through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” In verses 3 and 4 he says that there is no condemnation because “what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering, [thus condemning] sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” When you put together those two parallel explanations of why there is now no condemnation, you see that each of the persons of the Godhead is involved.
God the Father. What has God the Father done for our salvation? The answer is in two parts. First, God sent Jesus in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. Second, and by this means, God condemned sin in sinful man so that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in those who are joined to Christ. Do you see now why I have called verse 1 not only the theme of Romans 8 but the very heart of the gospel? As Paul explains the basis of our deliverance, almost the entire gospel is presented in the next few verses. There is the doctrine of the incarnation, God’s sending his Son Jesus to be like sinful man. The word likeness (v. 3) is important, of course, for it alerts us to the fact that although Jesus was a real man, which made him able to feel as we feel, endure temptation as we endure temptation, and eventually die, he nevertheless did not become like us in regard to our sinful nature. It is what the author of Hebrews means in noting that “we have one [high priest, that is, Jesus] who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Paul’s statement also contains the doctrine of the atonement. For his argument is that God sent his Son to be a sin offering. This picks up on all we learned about propitiation when we were studying Romans 3. God sent Jesus to die in our place and thus turn the divine wrath aside. Finally, and by this means, “[God] condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” This refers to justification, God’s work of condemning sin in Christ so that we might be able to stand before God in his perfect righteousness, and to the necessary work of sanctification that follows justification for all who have been saved. (We are going to look at the nature and necessity of sanctification carefully in the next study.)
God the Son. What has Jesus Christ done for our salvation? We have already touched on this by noting that he became like us in order to become a sin offering. In the context of what Paul worked out in Romans 3, this has two parts. First, as a sin offering to God, Jesus made propitiation for our sins. When we were studying chapter 3, I pointed out that this is a term borrowed from the world of ancient religion. It refers to turning the wrath of God aside. Many in our time have judged this to be unworthy of the character of God and say such things as, “As if his wrath needs to be turned aside! God is not angry, he is love.” But this can hardly stand in any honest study of Romans. What Paul has been saying from the beginning is that we are all under wrath because of our wickedness. The wrath of God is precisely our problem. It must be dealt with. How? We cannot turn it aside. All we do serves only to increase it, since we accumulate wrath against ourselves constantly by every thought we have and everything we do. Only God in the person of his Son can turn that wrath aside, and this he has done by Jesus’ bearing it in our place. No one who fails to understand and believe this can be a Christian. Second, Jesus did a work of redemption. Again, when we were studying chapter 3, I pointed out that redemption is a term borrowed from the ancient world of business, just as propitiation is borrowed from the ancient world of religion. It refers to buying something in the marketplace, and also to buying it out of the marketplace so it will not have to be sold there again. This means little if we think of it in regard to mere objects, but it means a great deal if we think of it in regard to people, especially slaves. To redeem a slave was to buy the slave out of the slave market so that he or she might be set free. This is what Jesus did for us. Paul touches on it in Romans 8 when he says that “through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (v. 2). He means that he was once a slave to sin and death. But Jesus freed him from that, as he has all who have been saved by him.
God the Holy Spirit. The third person of the Godhead is brought into the picture in verse 2 (“the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death”) and in verse 4 (“who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit”). What has the Holy Spirit done for our salvation? He has joined us to Christ, so that we become beneficiaries of all Christ has done. When we were studying this doctrine in Romans 5, I pointed out two things. First, that it is terribly important and perhaps the most critical doctrine of salvation in Paul’s writings. Paul used the phrases “in Christ,” “in Christ Jesus,” “in him,” or their equivalents 164 times in his writings. We can hardly emphasize this enough. Second, this union is hard to understand. We recognize that this was true for those living in Jesus’ and Paul’s day as well as for us, because instead of simply explaining the doctrine in abstract language, both Jesus and Paul used illustrations. Jesus spoke of it as the relationship between a vine and its branches: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit of itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.… Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:4–5). He also used the image of eating and drinking, which we adhere to literally every time we share in the Lord’s Supper: “This is my body” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor. 11:24–25). In his writings Paul illustrates the concept by three very powerful illustrations. The first is the union of the head and the body, in which he compares the members of the church to the various parts of Christ’s body (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12–27; Eph. 1:22–23; Col. 1:18). The second is the union of the parts of a building, sometimes described as a temple that has the Lord Jesus Christ as its chief cornerstone (cf. 1 Cor. 3:9, 11–15; Eph. 2:20–22). The third and most powerful illustration is the union of a husband and wife in marriage. Paul ends his teaching about marriage by saying, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32). By joining us to Christ, the Holy Spirit seals our salvation and makes possible the great declaration of this chapter: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
No, Nay, Never
I think of a popular Irish folksong called “The Wild Rover.” Perhaps you know it. It tells of a young man’s restless days and of his return home, ending with the chorus, “No, nay, never; no, nay, never, no more will I play the wild rover, no never, no more.” It makes me ask, “Can there ever be a condemning judgment for those who are in Christ Jesus?” I answer, “No, nay, never—no more.” Do you remember Jesus’ teaching about eternal security in John 10? He was speaking of how he and the Father hold us safely: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27–30). When I was teaching John’s Gospel I compared this to a carpenter who will sometimes join two boards by driving nails through them and then bending the protruding tip of the nails over sideways, embedding them in the wood, thus clinching the nail. I said that this is what Jesus does. His first nail is the doctrine of eternal life, a life that will never end. But lest we fail to appreciate that eternal life really is eternal life, he clinches it by the explanatory words “shall never perish.” Then he drives the second nail, that we are secure in his hands. In case we fail to appreciate that, he clinches this nail, too, adding that the Father also has us in his hands, that no one can snatch us out of the Father’s hands, and that he and the Father are one. In the same way, Paul teaches that “there is now no condemnation”—(1) because of the Father’s work; (2) because of the Son’s work; and (3) because of the work of the Holy Spirit. Now it is “no, nay, never” for those who are in Jesus. But do not presume on this security. This is a great doctrine for those who truly are in Christ, but it is only for those who are in him. Make sure you are. If you are not sure, give the matter no rest until the Holy Spirit himself plants upon your heart the assurance that you really are Christ’s.
Boice, J. M. (1991–). Romans: The Reign of Grace (Vol. 2, pp. 789–796). Baker Book House.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The statement, “There is therefore now no condemnation” is closely connected with the main thrust of Paul’s previous reasoning, taken as a unit. See especially verses 1:16, 17; 3:21, 24; 5:1, 2, 6–8, 15–21; 7:6. In these passages the apostle has been setting forth the fact that, through Christ’s debt-removing and sanctifying self-sacrifice, believers have been released from the curse of the law. Because of the entrance of sin (cf. 8:3) the law cannot now be regarded as a means of obtaining salvation, nor does it have the power to condemn believers. Rather, the law is the means for the expression of their gratitude. As such it is the object of their delight, even though, as 7:14f. has shown, in the present life complete obedience is impossible. This does not mean that there is no connection between 8:1 f. and the immediately preceding context. As has been indicated—see pp. 238, 239—there is a close connection between “Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord” (7:25a) and “There is therefore now no condemnation, etc.” (8:1). But even what Paul says in 7:25b—and more generally in 6:1–7:25—about the enslaving power of sin, is not absent from his mind in 8:1, as the sequel (8:1 f.) indicates. For Paul “no condemnation” means freedom not only from sin’s guilt but also from its enslaving power. To be sure, a distinction must be drawn between justification and sanctification. But this distinction must never become a separation. Calvin has made this clear by stating, “As Christ cannot be divided, so also these two blessings which we receive together in him are also inseparable” (Institutes III, xi, 6). In line with this twofold reference of the words “no condemnation” is the phrase “in Christ Jesus.” What Paul is saying is that for those who not only forensically are in Christ Jesus—the guilt of their sins having been removed by his death—but also spiritually—the sanctifying influences of his Spirit dominating their lives, there is now (=consequently) no condemnation. For them there is justification and therefore salvation full and free (see 8:29, 30). For more on the phrase “in Christ Jesus” see above on 3:24, p. 131, and on 6:3 f., p. 196. See also N.T.C. on Ephesians, pp. 70, 71. Justification and sanctification always go together. The fact that the expression “no condemnation” implies both pardon and purification is also clear from verse
For through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and of death. Paul speaks about “the law of the Spirit of life.” That the Holy Spirit is life in his very essence and also imparts life, both physical and spiritual, is clear from ever so many passages of Scripture. The basis for this doctrine is probably found already in Gen. 1:1; Ps. 51:11; 104:30. For closer references see John 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6; Gal. 6:8; and do not forget Rom. 8:11. The law of the Spirit of life is the forceful and effective operation of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of God’s children. It is the very opposite of “the law of sin and death,” for which see on 7:23, 25. Just as the law of sin produces death, so also the law, or ruling factor, of the Spirit of life brings about life. Cf. Rom. 6:23. It does this “through Christ Jesus,” that is, on the basis of the merits of his atonement, and by means of the vitalizing power of union with him. The question arises, “If in Rom. 7:14–8:2 Paul throughout speaks about himself as a believer, how can he say not only, “I am carnal, sold as a slave to sin … a prisoner” (7:14, 23); but also, “Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death”? How can a slave and prisoner also be a free person? Does not this very contradiction show that we have erroneously interpreted Rom. 7:14, 23? The answer is, “Not at all.” On the contrary, when we read these passages—both 7:14, 23 and 8:1, 2, we say, “How wonderful is the Word of God! What a true picture it draws of the person I really am! On the one hand I am a slave, a prisoner, for sin has such control over me that I cannot lead a sinless life (Jer. 17:9; Matt. 6:12; 1 John 1:8, 10). Yet, on the other hand, I am a free person, for though Satan tries with all his might and trickery to keep me from doing what is right—such as trusting God for my salvation, invoking him in prayer, rejoicing in him, working for his causes, etc., he cannot throughout stop me from doing so. He cannot completely prevent me from experiencing the peace of God that transcends all understanding. The sense of victory, which I possess in principle even now and will possess in perfection in the future, sustains me in all my struggles. I rejoice in the freedom which Christ has earned for me!” (cf. Gal. 5:1). When an interpreter of 7:21–8:2 limits Christian experience to what is found in 7:22, 25a, 8:1, 2, leaving out 7:21, 23, 24, 25b, does he not resemble the musician who tries to play an elaborate piece on an organ with a very restricted number of octaves, or on a harp with many broken strings?
Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Vols. 12–13, pp. 244–246). Baker Book House.
So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. (Hebrews 13:6)
Because God will never leave nor forsake us, we may well be content with such things as we have. Since the Lord is ours, we cannot be left without a friend, a treasure, and a dwelling place. This assurance may make us feel quite independent of men. Under such high patronage we do not feel tempted to cringe before our fellowmen and ask of them permission to call our lives our own; but what we say we boldly say and defy contradiction.
He who fears God has nothing else to fear. We should stand in such awe of the living Lord that all the threats that can be used by the proudest persecutor should have no more effect upon us than the whistling of the wind. Man in these days cannot do so much against us as he could when the apostle wrote the verse at the head of this page. Racks and stakes are out of fashion. Giant Pope cannot burn the pilgrims now. If the followers of false teachers try cruel mockery and scorn, we do not wonder at it, for the men of this world cannot love the heavenly seed. What then? We must bear the world’s scorn. It breaks no bones. God helping us, let us be bold; and when the world rages, let it rage, but let us not fear it.
“America has become a country of cynics. At least, that’s what studies show.” That delightful thought is the opening line to Lauren Jackson’s recent profile on hope for the New York Times. And if a declaration of cynicism sounds to you like a strange way to introduce a call to hope, you’re not wrong. Unfortunately, neither is she.
As Jackson describes, “People don’t trust each other, the media or the government. Most Americans, about 80 percent, don’t feel confident their children’s lives will be better than theirs. About half the country thinks America’s best days are in the past.”
If these sentiments had no basis in the real world, they could be easily dismissed. However, that’s not the case.
For example, you’ve probably heard or read about America’s “K-shaped” economy in recent months. The term has been used to describe the nation’s financial state to some degree since 2020, and the basic idea is that those who already have wealth are doing well, while the less wealthy are continuing to trend down. The two divergent trajectories form the shape of a K, hence the name.
The result is yet another fracture point in our society, where people living in the same country often feel as though they’re experiencing a different world than those on the other side of the financial divide. And the same basic reality is frequently true in the realms of politics, social justice, and a host of other cultural issues.
At the end of the day, it can be hard for our culture to find a common basis for hope when our experiences are so different. And that’s why I found Jackson’s article to be interesting.
The best our world has to offer
In calling people to embrace hope this new year, Jackson makes a distinction between hope and optimism that illuminates an important aspect of this conversation. Referencing Chan Hellman from The Hope Research Center, she writes that, “While optimism is the belief that the future will be better, hope is the belief ‘that we have the power to make it so.’”
Jackson then goes on to outline the various ways people can cultivate hope and the sources they most often look to in search of hope. In almost every case, it comes back to the basic idea that our reason for hope is that “we have the power” to make our world better.
To be clear, she’s not wrong—at least not entirely. We do have the capacity to improve our world, and our reasons for hopelessness are often related to our refusal to do so.
However, the path she describes is fundamentally different from the approach found in the Bible. As such, it exemplifies both the best our world has to offer and the reason why the world so desperately needs something more.
How to build hope
In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we find the apostle writing to a church struggling with division, fighting over authority, and attempting to understand what it looked like to follow Jesus in the heart of an empire that had little regard for his teachings. To these believers, Paul wrote:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1–5)
Like Lauren Jackson, Paul had a high view of hope. However, it was a hope grounded in God and all that he has done for his people rather than in ourselves.
Moreover, it is not a hope that can simply be willed into existence, nor is it dependent on the belief that better times are ahead. As the apostle makes clear, biblical hope is often born by looking back on the Lord’s faithfulness in suffering and learning to endure in a way that proves the genuineness of our faith.
You see, the “character” that Paul describes in verse 4 is better translated as a “proof of genuineness” or what is “tested and true.” The idea is that the kind of hope that will not put us to shame comes from facing the trials and tribulations of this world and learning—truly learning—that God is enough.
That’s not an easy process, and it’s not supposed to be. God knew that, on this side of heaven, we would never be able to completely escape the realities of pain and hardship, so he designed a way to redeem them by using those times to teach us to find our hope in him. And few people have exemplified that kind of hope in recent days as well as Ben Sasse.
A hope born of eternity
Dr. Jim Denison wrote on Sasse’s story and his fight with stage-four pancreatic cancer last week, and I encourage you to go back and read his article if you missed it. Yet, as we conclude for today, I’d like to draw our attention once again to the way Sasse describes the hope he and his family have found in the face of his diagnosis:
Often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.
A well-lived life demands more reality—stiffer stuff. That’s why, during Advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope—often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.
He then writes: “Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective: ‘When we’ve been there 10,000 years. . .We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise.’”
The hope our world needs—and the hope we can only find in God—places our present problems in eternity’s perspective, and comes away with the confidence that those who put their trust in him will not be put to shame.
Do you have that kind of hope today?
Quote of the day:
“Your most profound and intimate experiences of worship will likely be in your darkest days – when your heart is broken, when you feel abandoned, when you’re out of options, when the pain is great – and you turn to God alone.” —Rick Warren
I was recently driving with my young daughter a few days after she publicly professed her faith in Christ. She asked an important question: Not everyone who says they trust in Jesus stays faithful to him. How can I be sure that isn’t me?
You can probably think of someone who at one time claimed to trust in Christ but later fell away. A contemporary term for this is deconstruction. Scripture uses a more catastrophic image: some, “concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck” (1 Tim. 1:19–20). Paul wasn’t exaggerating. He had been shipwrecked (2 Cor. 11:25). He knew that apostasy was no less tragic than the sinking of a vessel on which people’s lives depend. These apostates Paul names—Hymenaeus and Alexander—punctuate Paul’s charge to the church to “wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience.”
How can the failures of others help you be diligent in resisting apostasy?
Take Heed Lest You Fall
The surest way to fall away from the faith is to assume you are immune to falling away (1 Cor. 10:12). “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:12–13). Jesus exhorted even his closest friends: “Abide in Me… If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned (John 15:6). Perseverance in the faith requires constant vigilance. “We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end” (Heb. 3:14).
Understand the End of Apostasy
Apostasy is not simply a different way to practice faith. Apostates turn off the path that leads to eternal life. Those who renounce faith will be cut off from the tree of life (Rom. 11:22). “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them” (2 Peter 2:20–21).
Not everyone publishes their apostasy in carefully postured social media posts. Some who have professed the Christian faith quietly stop coming to church and bearing fruit but continue to identify as Christians. They want to avoid a public scandal. But they simply postpone the most scandalous confrontation imaginable. On the Day of Judgment Jesus will say to all apostates: “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23).
Beware of the “Wrong-Side-of-History” Narrative
It isn’t hard to read in some popular deconstruction announcements a discomfort with the worldview clash that Christianity demands. The world will always see serious Christians as being on the wrong side of history; biblical morality seems ignorant and contrary to human progress. Christians will face “the tribulations and persecutions on account of the world” (Matt. 13:21).
So be careful what you repent of. Some deconstructing people “repent” of the church’s alleged self-righteousness, a fear-based approach to life, mistreatment of women (or men), faulty parenting, and bigotry toward those with different sexual understanding and practice. But genuine repentance isn’t conditioned by what the world presently condemns. It is comprehensive sorrow over sin and the practice of new ideas and actions that more clearly reflect God (2 Cor. 7:10).
The “wrong-side-of-history” motif is like trying to solve a constantly changing maze. To be politically or socially fashionable you will have to change your religious boundary markers and risk apostasy.
Beware of Gradual Drift
Most people who fall away from the faith don’t experience a sudden, Damascus-road-type de-conversion. Studies indicate that a strong majority of those who leave the faith do so gradually. Every time we ignore the urging of our conscience we smooth and broaden the path of apostasy. We need to develop the kind of spiritual disciplines and friendships that will help ensure that if we begin to drift church leaders, family, and friends will notice and take action.
Anticipate Deconstruction
Maturity guarantees some level of worldview deconstruction. Those raised in a covenant home begin their life of faith by believing nearly everything they learn from parents and other close influencers. But maturity happens when we scrutinize the faith we have inherited (1 Cor. 13:11) by searching the Scriptures and searching our souls. Parents and church leaders should welcome the intimidating, genuine questions of their children. If you enter a phase of confusion over who you are and where you are headed don’t assume you have fallen away. Trust that God’s gift of true faith is robust enough to handle all the twists and turns of your life.
Confess the Historic Faith
Sound, time-tested public theological formulations ground believers in truth that is bigger and more biblical than our own fluctuating ideas. Historic confessions help us know what we must believe as God’s children. We must trust that God is, that he has revealed himself both in nature and Scripture, and that he will reject those who reject him and reward those who earnestly seek him (Heb. 11:6). Confessions allow for significant latitude of expression while providing a solid biblical foundation on which to build, and boundaries within which to work.
Trust God to Keep You from Stumbling
Writing to Christians who seemed to be on the brink of apostasy the apostle to the Hebrews was still optimistic: “We are not of those who draw back to perdition but of those who believe to the saving of the soul” (Heb. 10:39). He’s teaching us to be hopeful. Don’t agonize over the weakness of your faith, the holes in your understanding, or the unbelief mixed in with your faith. Be confident in Christ. It is not your faith that makes you lovely to God but only Christ’s righteousness which you receive by faith. Life is complicated. We are all tempted to compromise. But we have a matchless simplicity in Christ (1 Cor. 11:3). Hidden in Christ alone we are safe. He “is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 25).
because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (5:5b–8)
A fourth marvelous link in the unbreakable chain that eternally binds believers to Christ is their possession of the divine love of God, which has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. When a person receives salvation through Jesus Christ, he enters a spiritual love relationship with God that lasts throughout all eternity. As the apostle makes unambiguous in verse 8, love of God does not here refer to our love for God but to His love for us. The most overwhelming truth of the gospel is that God loved sinful, fallen, rebellious mankind, so much “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And as the apostle proclaims in verse 9 of this present chapter, if God loved us with so great a love before we were saved, when we were still His enemies, how much more does He love us now. As if that were not enough, God even graciously imparts His love to us. For those who accept His offer of salvation, God takes His indescribable and undeserved love and pours it out within the hearts of those who believe, through His own Holy Spirit who he gives to them. Taking the truth of eternal security out of the objective area of the mind, Paul now reveals that, in Christ, we are also given subjective evidence of permanent salvation, evidence that God Himself implants within our deepest being, in that we love the One who first loved us (1 John 4:7–10; cf. 1 Cor. 16:22). Poured out refers to lavish outpouring to the point of overflowing. Our heavenly Father does not proffer His love in measured drops but in immeasurable torrents. The very fact that God gives His Holy Spirit to indwell believers is itself a marvelous testimony to His love for us, because He would hardly indwell those whom He did not love. And it is only because of the indwelling Spirit that His children are able to truly love Him. Speaking to His disciples about the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water’ ” (John 7:38; cf. v. 39). Those rivers of blessing can flow out of believers only because of the divine rivers of blessing, including the blessing of divine love, that God has poured into them. In the same way, our spiritual security is not in our ability to live godly but in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to make us godly. Only God can make men godly, and the Spirit’s leading us into godliness is one of the great evidences of salvation. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God,” Paul declares, “these are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). With the longing to love, even the genuine desire to be godly is produced by the Holy Spirit. Whenever we sincerely aspire to righteous living, whenever we have an earnest desire to pray, whenever we yearn to study God’s Word, whenever we long to worship the Lord Jesus Christ with all our hearts, we know we are being led by the Holy Spirit. Whenever we experience the awesome awareness that God is indeed our heavenly Father, it is “the Spirit Himself [who] bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:16–17). The natural man has no such desires or experiences, and even Christians would not have them apart from being indwelt and led by the Holy Spirit. Because acknowledging His promises with the mind does not necessarily bring personal confidence to the heart, God makes provision for the emotional encouragement as well as the mental enlightenment of His children. When the Lord is given free reign in our lives, the Holy Spirit will bear fruit in and through us, the first fruit of which is love (Gal. 5:22). But when we grieve Him through our disobedience (Eph. 4:30), He cannot produce what He intends. Therefore, when we live in disobedience, we not only will not feel loving toward God but will not feel His love for us. With perhaps that truth in mind, Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers: “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God” (Eph. 3:14–19). The Holy Spirit strengthens the inner man and enables him “to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.” By the gracious work of the Spirit within us, our hearts are able to experience a depth of love that our minds are unable to grasp, “the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.” Knowing that his readers would want to know more about the quality and character of the divine love that filled them, Paul reminds them of the greatest manifestation of God’s love in all history, perhaps in all eternity: For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. While men were utterly helpless to bring themselves to God, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, notwithstanding the fact that we were ungodly and completely unworthy of His love. When we were powerless to escape from our sin, powerless to escape death, powerless to resist Satan, and powerless to please Him in any way, God amazingly sent His Son to die on our behalf. Natural human love is almost invariably based on the attractiveness of the object of love, and we are inclined to love people who love us. Consequently, we tend to attribute that same kind of love to God. We think that His love for us is dependent on how good we are or on how much we love Him. But as Jesus pointed out, even traitorous tax collectors were inclined to love those who loved them (Matt. 5:46). And as theologian Charles Hodge observed, “If [God] loved us because we loved him, he would love us only so long as we love him, and on that condition; and then our salvation would depend on the constancy of our treacherous hearts. But as God loved us as sinners, as Christ died for us as ungodly, our salvation depends, as the apostle argues, not on our loveliness, but on the constancy of the love of God” (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974 reprint], pp. 136–37). God’s immense love is supremely demonstrated by Christ’s dying for the ungodly, for totally unrighteous, undeserving, and unlovable mankind. In the human realm, by contrast, Paul observes that one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. Paul is not contrasting a righteous man with a good man, but is simply using those terms synonymously. His point is that it is uncommon for a person to sacrifice his own life in order to save the life even of someone of high character. Still fewer people are inclined to give their lives to save a person they know to be a wicked scoundrel. But God was so inclined, and in that is our security and assurance. Saved, we can never be as wretched as we were before salvation—and He loved us totally then. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That sort of self-less, undeserved love is completely beyond human comprehension. Yet that is the love that the just and infinitely holy God had toward us even while we were yet sinners. The God who hates every sinful thought and every sinful deed nevertheless loves the sinners who think and do those things, even while they are still hopelessly enmeshed in their sin. Even when men openly hate God and do not have the least desire to give up their sin, they are still the objects of God’s redeeming love as long as they live. Only at death does an unbeliever cease to be loved by God. After that, he is eternally beyond the pale of God’s love and is destined irrevocably for His wrath. In Christ, we are forever linked to God by His love, demonstrated in (positive) blessings and (negative) mercy.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1991). Romans (Vol. 1, pp. 283–286). Moody Press.
God’s Love Commended
Romans 5:6–8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
There are a number of preachers today, some of them quite famous, who do not want to say anything unpleasant about sinful human nature. They describe their approach to Christianity as “possibility thinking” and argue that people are already so discouraged about themselves that they do not need to be told that they are wicked. I do not know how such preachers could possibly preach on our text. They should want to, I think, Romans 5:6–8 (and verse 5, which precedes this paragraph) speak about the love that God has for us. The greatness of this love, which is mentioned here in Romans for the very first time, is an uplifting and positive theme. Besides, it is brought into the argument at this point to assure us that all who have been justified by faith in Christ have been saved because of God’s love for them and that nothing will ever be able to separate them from it. This is the climax to which we will also come at the end of Romans 8. Nothing could be more positive or more edifying than this theme. Yet Paul’s statement of the nature, scope, and permanence of God’s love is placed against the black backdrop of human sin, and rightly so. For, as Paul tells us: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8). How can we appreciate or even understand that statement without speaking about the evil natures of those whom God has thus loved? This is a very practical matter for two reasons. First, since Paul is describing the love of God against the dark background of human sin, he is saying that it is only against this background that we are able to form a true picture of how great the love of God is. In other words, if we think (as many do) that God loves us because we are somehow quite lovely or desirable, our appreciation of the love of God will be reduced by just that amount—just as a beautiful but very vain woman might have trouble appreciating the love of her husband, or of anyone else. If we think we deserve the best of everything, we will not appreciate the love we receive irrespective of our beauty, talent, or other supposedly admirable qualities. The second point is this: If we think we deserve God’s love, we cannot ever really be secure in it, because we will always be afraid that we may do something to lessen or destroy the depth of God’s love for us. It is only those who know that God has loved them in spite of their sin who can trust him to continue to show them favor.
God’s Love for Sinners
I begin with Paul’s description of the people God loves and has saved, and I ask you to notice the four powerful words used to portray them, three in the passage we are studying and one additional word in verse 10. They are “powerless,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” and “enemies.” It is important to know that we are all rightly described by each of these words.
Powerless. This word is translated in a variety of ways in our Bible versions: “weak,” “helpless,” “without strength,” “feeble,” “sluggish in doing right,” and so on. Only the strongest terms will do in this context, since the idea is that, left to ourselves, none of us is able to do even one small thing to please God or achieve salvation. One commentator distinguishes between “conditional impossibilities” and “unconditional impossibilities” in order to show that this kind of inability is truly unconditional. A conditional impossibility is one in which we are unable to do something unless something else happens. For example, I might find it impossible to repay a loan unless I should suddenly earn a large sum of money. Or I might be unable to accept an invitation to some social event unless a prior commitment is canceled. An unconditional impossibility is one which no possible change in circumstances can alter, and it is this that describes us in our pre-converted state. What specifically were we unable to do? We were unable to understand spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14). We were unable to see the kingdom of God or enter it (John 3:3, 5). We were unable to seek God (Rom. 3:11). Paul elsewhere describes this inability vividly when he says that before God saved us we were “dead in [our] transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1). That is, we were no more able to respond to or seek God than a corpse is able to respond to stimuli of any kind.
Ungodly. This word conveys the same idea Paul expressed at the beginning of his description of the race in its rebellion against God: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom. 1:18). In these verses, “ungodly” and “godlessness” mean not so much that human beings are unlike God (though that is also true), but that in addition they are in a state of fierce opposition to him. God is sovereign, but they oppose him in his sovereignty. They do not want him to rule over them; they want to be free to do as they please. God is holy, and they oppose him in his holiness. This means that they do not accept his righteous and proper moral standards; they do not want their sinful acts and desires to be called into question. God is omniscient, and they oppose him for his omniscience. They are angry that he knows them perfectly, that nothing they think or do is hidden from his sight. They also oppose him for his immutability, since immutability means that God does not change in these or any of his other attributes.
Sinners. “Sinners” describes those who have fallen short of God’s standards, as Romans 3:23 says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” It means that we have broken God’s law and in this sense is probably parallel to the word wickedness in Romans 1:18, which was cited above. “Godlessness” is being opposed to God; that is, to have broken the first table of the law, which tells us that we are to worship and serve God only (cf. Matt. 22:37–38). “Wickedness” means to have broken the second table of the law; we have failed to treat others properly, to have respected them, and to have loved them as we love ourselves (cf. Matt. 22:39).
Enemies. The final word Paul uses to describe human beings apart from the supernatural work of God in their lives is “enemies,” though the word does not appear until verse 10. This summarizes what has been said by the first three terms, but it also goes beyond that. It affirms that not only are we unable to save ourselves, are unlike and opposed to God, and are violators of his law, but we are also opposed to God in the sense that we would attack him and destroy him if we could. Being like Satan in his desires, we would drag God from his throne, cast him to hell and crush him into nothingness—if that were possible—which is what many people actually tried to do when God came among them in the person of Jesus Christ. What a terrible picture of humanity! No wonder the possibility thinkers choose other, more uplifting themes to speak about! Yet it is only against this background that we see the brightness of God’s love. “You see,” writes Paul, “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (vv. 6–8).
Love at the Cross
Any contrast has two sides, of course, and thus far we have looked only at one side. We have looked at the dark side: ourselves. We have seen that God loved us, not when we were lovely people who were seeking him out and trying to obey him, but when we were actually fighting him and were willing to destroy him if we could. That alone makes the measure of God’s love very great. However, we may also see the greatness of the love of God by looking at the bright side: God’s side. And here we note that God did not merely reach out to give us a helping hand, bestowing what theologians call common grace—sending rain on the just and unjust alike (cf. Matt. 5:45), for instance—but that he actually sent his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for us. There is a further contrast, too, as Paul brings these great ideas together and compares what God has done in dying for sinners with what human beings might themselves do in certain circumstances. Paul points out that, while a human being might be willing to give his life for a righteous or, better yet, a morally superior woman or man under certain circumstances, Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, which is the precise opposite of being good, or righteous. In his excellent study of this text Donald Grey Barnhouse gives two illustrations of exceptionally great human love. In one story two men were trapped in a mine cave-in, and poisonous gas was escaping. One man had a wife and three children. He also had a gas mask, but his mask had been torn in the underground explosion and he would have perished apart from the act of the man who was trapped with him. This second man took off his own mask and forced it on the man who survived, saying, “You have Mary and the children; they need you. I am alone and can go.” When we hear of an act like this, we sense we are on hallowed ground. The other story concerns a tough youngster from the streets of one of our large cities. His sister had been crippled and needed an operation. The operation was provided for her. But after the operation the girl needed a blood transfusion, and the boy, her brother, was asked to volunteer. He was taken to her bedside and watched tight-lipped as a needle was inserted into his vein and blood was fed into his sister’s body. When the transfusion was over, the doctor put his arm on the boy’s shoulder and told him that he had been very brave. The youngster knew nothing about the nature of a blood transfusion. But the doctor knew even less about the actual bravery of the boy—until the boy looked up at him and asked steadily, “Doc, how long before I croak?” He had gotten the idea that he would have to die to save his sister, and he had thought that he was dying drop by drop as his blood flowed into her veins. But he did it anyway! These stories sober us, because in them we recognize something of the highest human love. Yet, when we read of the love of God in Romans 5, we learn that it was not for those who were close to him or who loved him that Jesus died—but for those who were opposed to God and were his enemies. It is on this basis that God commends his love to us.
An Argument for Hard Hearts
Isn’t it astounding that God should need to commend his love to us? We are told in the Bible, though we should know it even without being told, that all good gifts come from God’s hands (James 1:17). It is from God that we receive life and health, food and clothing, love from and fellowship with other people, and meaningful work. These blessings should prove the love of God beyond any possibility of our doubting it. Yet we do doubt it. We are insensitive to God’s love, and God finds it necessary to commend his love by reminding us of the death of his Son. So it is at the cross that we see the love of God in its fullness. What a great, great love this is! You may recall that when the Swiss theologian Karl Barth was in this country some years before his death, someone asked a question at one of his question-and-answer sessions that went like this: “Dr. Barth, what is the greatest thought that has ever gone through your mind?” The questioner probably expected some complicated and incomprehensible answer, as if Einstein were being asked to explain the theory of relativity. But after he had thought a long while, Barth replied by saying: “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.” This was a profound answer and a correct one. For there is nothing greater that any of us could think about or know than that Jesus loves us and has shown his love by dying in our place.
The Greatness of God’s Love
I would like to close this study by reflecting on the greatness of God’s love for us, but I wonder how anyone can do that adequately. How can any merely human words sufficiently express this wonder? Some years ago I was preaching through the Gospel of John and had come to that greatest of all verses about the love of God: John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” I wanted to say that the love of God is great, remembering that Ephesians 2:4 uses that very word: “But because of his great love for us.…” But the English word great is not great enough for this subject. The week before, I had been at Houghton College in New York, and I remembered having said that I thought the work of the college was great, that some of the points the other speakers had made were great, and that I had had a great time. I was sincere in my use of the word great. But what were such uses of the word compared to the use of the word to describe God’s love? Someone once tried to express the greatness of God’s love by printing on a little card a special arrangement of John 3:16, with certain descriptive phrases added. The twelve parts of the verse were arranged down one side of the card, and the added phrases were printed across from them. It went like this:
God the greatest Lover so loved the greatest degree the world the greatest company that he gave the greatest act his only begotten Son the greatest gift that whosoever the greatest opportunity believeth the greatest simplicity in him the greatest attraction should not perish the greatest promise but the greatest difference have the greatest certainty everlasting life the greatest possession
The title placed over the whole was: “Christ—the Greatest Gift.” Let me try to express the greatness of the love of God by the words of a hymn by F. M. Lehman. Lehman wrote most of this hymn, but the final stanza (the best, in my opinion) was added to it later, after it had been found scratched on the wall of a room in an asylum by a man said to have been insane. The first and last verses of the hymn and the chorus, go as follows:
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave his Son to win:
His erring child he reconciled
And rescued from his sin.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho stretched from sky to sky.
Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Did you know that the love of God seemed so great to the biblical writers that they invented, or at least raised to an entirely new level of meaning, a brand-new word for love? The Greek language was rich in words for love. There was the word storgē, which referred to affection, particularly within the family. There was philia, from which we get “philharmonic” and “philanthropy” and the place name “Philadelphia.” It refers to a love between friends. A third word was erōs, which has given us “erotic,” and which referred to sexual love. This was a rich linguistic heritage. Yet, when the Old Testament was translated into Greek and when the New Testament writers later wrote in Greek, they found that none of these common Greek words was able to express what they wanted. They therefore took another word without strong associations and poured their own, biblical meaning into it. The new word was agapē, which thereby came to mean the holy, gracious, sovereign, everlasting, and giving love of God that we are studying here. Alas, I feel that even yet I have not begun to explain how great the love of God is. There is nothing to be done but to go back to our text and read again: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Perhaps I should say one more thing on this subject: If you do not yet fully appreciate (or perhaps have not even begun to appreciate) the greatness of the love God has for you, the explanation is probably that you have never really thought of yourself as God saw you in your fallen state. Perhaps you have never thought of yourself as someone who was utterly without strength or powerless before God saved you. Perhaps you have never considered yourself to have been ungodly. Nor a sinner. Nor God’s enemy. But that is what you were—and still are if you have never come to Christ in order to be justified. It is only if you can recognize the truth of these descriptions that you can begin to appreciate the love that God holds out to you through the death of his Son. If you have never responded to this great overture of the divine love, let me encourage you to do that, assuring you that there is no greater truth in all the universe. Can you think of anything greater? Of course, you can’t. How could anybody? God loves you. Jesus died for you. Let those truly great thoughts move you to abandon your sin, love God in return, and live for Jesus.
Boice, J. M. (1991–). Romans: The Reign of Grace (Vol. 2, pp. 535–542). Baker Book House.
6–8. For while we were still powerless, at the appointed time Christ died for the ungodly. Now a man will scarcely die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. In this passage Paul states the reason for saying that God poured his love into the hearts of sinners. He tells us that he was justified in making this assertion because “while we were still powerless,” that is, helpless, totally unable to rescue ourselves from the effects of the fall, Christ, motivated by sovereign love and not by any human merit or accomplishment, died for us, the ungodly. The unique character of this love becomes apparent when we consider the fact that while for a righteous person a man will scarcely die—though, by rare exception, it might after all happen that for such a good person someone would dare to die, God, on the other hand, demonstrates his own love in this remarkable way, namely, that while we were still in our helpless and sinful state Christ died for us. In connection with this explanation note the following: a. The “ungodly” people of verse 6 are the “sinners” of verse 8, namely, those sinners for whom Christ died, the “beloved of God, saints” of 1:7. b. The distinction between “a righteous person” and “a good person” should not be pressed, as if the apostle were saying that for a person who is merely “righteous” it would be almost impossible to find someone who would die, but for a “good” person, or benefactor, it might under exceptional conditions be possible to find a substitute who would be willing to offer his life. This is over-interpretation. We should adhere to the one basic point Paul is making, and not obscure the thought by introducing unwarranted distinctions. Room should be left for stylistic variation. c. What Paul is saying is that God’s love, as revealed in Jesus Christ, is both unprecedented and unparalleled. No merit from our side could have moved Christ to die for us, for he died for us “while we were still sinners.” Moreover, he died for us “at the appointed time,” that is, at the time appointed by God (cf. Mark 1:15; Gal. 4:4), not by us. This death was unparalleled with respect to the marvel of the implied condescending and pardoning grace. Christ died for those who were bad, bad, bad! In them there was no goodness that could have attracted this love. In the death of Jesus for sinners God demonstrates “his own” sovereign love. See Isa. 1:18; 53:6; 57:15; Dan. 9:17–19; 1 John 4:10. d. Note the word “demonstrates,” present tense. Although it is true that for Paul, at the time he wrote this letter, as well as for us today, the death of Christ was an event that had occurred in the past, its lesson remains an ever present and glorious reality. e. Note “his own love for us.” f. Though it is true that no less than four times in these three verses Paul uses a preposition (ὑπέρ) which has a very wide range of meaning, stretching all the way from about or concerning (cf. περί) to in the place of (cf. ἀντί), and which frequently means “for,” “in behalf of,” “for the sake of,” “in the interest of,” it would seem that here in Rom. 5:6–8 this little word, though not by itself meaning “in the place of” implies as much. Does not the context (see verses 9, 10) indicate that by means of the shedding of his blood Christ removed from us God’s wrath? See also N.T.C. on Galatians, p. 130; on Philippians, pp. 82, 83; and on 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, pp. 375, 376.
Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Vols. 12–13, pp. 172–173). Baker Book House.
US Reissues Urgent ‘Do Not Travel’ Warning For Russia, As NYT Confirms CIA’s Escalating Involvement The US State Department has once once again re-issued an urgent advisory warning Americans not to travel to Russia. The renewed travel advisory also tells any American citizens currently in Russia to depart immediately. It cites the danger associated with the ongoing war with Ukraine, as well as the significant risk of wrongful detention by Russian officials, and the possibility of terrorism.
Is a second strike on Iran inevitable, and what would it change? Israel may be heading toward another year defined first by war and then by diplomacy. In the first half of 2026, Israel is likely to be fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran. In the second half of the year, those battles could give way to a series of peace agreements, including an expansion of the Abraham Accords.
Is this the oldest known image of Jerusalem, featuring King Hezekiah? If you go to the British Museum in London today, you can see the huge Lachish wall reliefs portraying the Assyrian siege, capture and destruction of the city of Lachish in Israel, all chiseled into stone slabs more than 2,700 years old. Now it seems one of those slabs may have an additional story to tell.
Visions of Psalms: Flash Flood Brings Nahal Qumran to Life After Judean Rains After heavy rains in the mountains of Judea, a sudden flash flood tore through Nahal Qumran—the desert ravine that descends past the cliffs near the ancient settlement of Qumran and empties into the Dead Sea, manifesting the verse from Psalms (Tehillim 126) “Restore, O LORD, our fortunes like the dry riverbeds in the Negev”. The area is associated with the Second Temple–era Jewish community commonly identified with the Dead Sea Scrolls, manuscripts that preserved the Hebrew Bible with astonishing accuracy across millennia.
‘Make Iran Great Again’: Israeli ministers support Iranian demonstrators Israeli government ministers and lawmakers publicly voiced support this week for Iranians protesting against their government, as demonstrations across the Islamic Republic turned deadly and drew international attention.
Pahlavi thanks Trump for support of Iranian protesters, shares ideas to topple regime Pahlavi added that he has a plan for a “stable transition” in a scenario where the Islamic Republic regime would be toppled, where the country’s citizens would take to the streets in millions. Crown Prince of Iran Reza Pahlavi thanked US President Donald Trump on Friday afternoon in a post on X/Twitter for his “strong leadership and support” of the ongoing anti-Islamic Republic protests occurring across Iran.
Iran foreign minister warns forces ‘know where to aim’ after Trump threat Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday accused President Donald Trump of making “reckless and dangerous” threats against Iran. Trump said in a post on X that protesters had taken to the streets in peaceful demonstrations, calling it their right. He said those protesting were mainly people hurt by sharp fluctuations in Iran’s currency.
“Then It Is War”: Elon Musk Responds After Somali TikToker Threatens His Life A Somali TikToker (account now defunct), first highlighted by Libs of TikTok, mocked Americans about alleged Somali-linked fraud in Minnesota and pushed dangerous rhetoric suggesting Elon Musk was “about to die.” Such statements fit a broader alarming pattern surrounding the Democratic Party’s normalization of assassination culture against Musk and President Trump supporters.
MN Lawmaker: Walz Team Threatened Whistleblowers With “Racism” & “Islamophobia” Slurs To Hide Somali Fraud Minnesota State Rep. Kristin Robbins has unleashed a stunning revelation, confirming that credible whistleblowers came forward with evidence that Gov. Tim Walz and his administration used threats of “racism” and “Islamophobia” labels to suppress exposures of massive Somali-linked fraud schemes draining taxpayer dollars.
Maduro Open To US Talks On Drug-Trafficking Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said he is open to talks with the United States to combat drug trafficking, but did not comment on last week’s U.S. strikes on a docking facility.
Strong M6.5 earthquake hits Guerrero, Mexico A strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.5 struck Guerrero, Mexico, at 13:58 UTC (07:58 LT) on January 2, 2026. The agency is reporting a depth of 35 km (21.7 miles). EMSC is reporting the same magnitude and depth. The USGS issued a Yellow alert for shaking-related fatalities and a Green alert for economic losses.
Flash floods kill 17 and destroy 1800 homes across Afghanistan Flash floods triggered by heavy rainfall and snowmelt have killed at least 17 people and left 11 injured across Afghanistan since January 1, 2026. Over 1800 homes were destroyed in Herat, Badghis, and Faryab provinces, with authorities warning of continuing risk as moderate rainfall persists in western regions.
Australia Enforces Age ID Checks for Search Engine Users Australia has activated a new requirement for search engines to verify the ages of their signed-in users, with companies now facing a six-month countdown to full compliance.
Trump warns: ‘If Iran shoots protesters, the US will come to their rescue’ …”If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J.TRUMP,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Charter or Sharia: How Canada’s Federal Workplace Is Being Reengineered Into a Parallel Islamic System Canada’s federal workplace is being quietly transformed from Charter-based neutrality into sharia-aligned compliance, as a Muslim employees’ guide reframes “religious accommodation” into institutional submission, enforced conformity, and the normalization of a parallel religious legal order inside the state itself.
Florida for Sale: Inside the Taxpayer-Funded Islamic Settlement of Tampa “Tampa is now considered the second best Islamic city in America—after Dallas” is not a compliment—it is a declaration that Florida’s taxpayer-funded schools, mosques, and markets are being used to construct a permanent Islamic parallel society in plain sight.
A Christian Nation If You Can Keep It When discussing the nature of the fledgling United States in 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powel, an influential socialite in Philadelphia, asked Benjamin Franklin “[w]ell, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin famously responded that the United States is “a republic, if you can keep it.” At the dawn of 2026, a similar question lingers amid controversy over the nation’s religious status following recent remarks by President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. More specifically, it thus seems fair to ask, without putting too much emphasis on Christmas, whether the United States is a Christian nation. We can respond enthusiastically “yes, if we can keep it.”
FBI disrupts alleged ISIS-inspired New Year’s Eve attack plot targeting NC grocery store, fast food restaurant The FBI disrupted an alleged plot to attack people inside a grocery store and fast food restaurant in North Carolina on New Year’s Eve in support of the Islamic State terrorist group, prosecutors revealed Friday. Christian Sturdivant, 18, of Mint Hill — a town outside Charlotte — was arrested and charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina Russ Ferguson said.
Minnesota on Display Homeland Security is conducting a “massive investigation” into childcare and other “rampant fraud” in Minneapolis. The DOJ announced 98 total arrests (including 85 of Somali descent) for fraud in Minnesota, primarily in daycare center fraud. Now, I’m sure law enforcement is mistaken. I’m sure it’s a mistake … or worse. Because Minneapolis is largely known as a law abiding, careful government … oh … wait …
If at First You Don’t Succeed In response to the Christmas Eve fiasco where musicians ruined fans’ Christmas Eve by canceling their show because the musicians were mad about … Trump … it appears that the Kennedy Center is planning to make a tradition of ruining people’s events by canceling again. “You know what? We don’t care about you fans or your fun. All we care about is we don’t like Trump.” So they’ve canceled the New Year’s Eve performance as well. That ought to make us understand their position better. Let’s see … you’re saying … “Nope! We don’t care about our fans!” Got it.
Tubes and Toothpaste Have you heard of the notion that you “you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.” As a race, we seem to accept something as novel, but before long, it’s necessary, then mandatory. Take the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), for instance. Established in 2010 as an oversight of financial institutions, it went from “a good idea” to a judicial mandate, as evidenced by the story that a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must fund the CFPB. It’s not constitutional. It’s not a legal mandate somewhere. But … now it’s a requirement. That particular toothpaste is not going back in that tube.
Banning Social Media? Australia last year banned social media accounts for children under the age of 16. Now France is considering something similar for under 15. So is Denmark, Malaysia, and Norway. Netherlands discourages it for under 15 and Greece requires parental consent. Apparently these (and others) are seeing dangers that have always been there but have gone unaddressed.
Your Best Source for Fake News Minnesota’s Governor Walz is taking action on this whole fraud thing. He has awarded an $8 billion grant to a Somali company to investigate the Somali perpetrators. Because that’s what a savvy government does. On the airstrikes in Nigeria on Christmas day, the Bee had a … different spin. They suggest Trump gave some terrorists the special gift of meeting Allah for Christmas. Finally, apparently Planet Fitness figured out a new approach by offering a new two-week membership for New Years … you know, for those folks making resolutions. Shrewd marketing.
With stories ranging from Mamdani to Minnesota, the news cycle continues to flow as we surge into the new year. Here’s a selection of stories that Jim presented:
–Zohran Mamdani is sworn in as mayor of New York on the Qur’an and claims he wants to replace individualism with “the warmth of collectivism.”
–Mamdani used his first day in office yesterday to hit the ground running with new executive orders targeting city landlords and housing development. He said that the city will take precedent setting action to intervene in the private landlord bankruptcy case he said was tied to 93 buildings.
–The Council on American/Islamic Relations of New York called Mamdani’s inauguration, “a historic moment of progress for American Muslims and the entire nation.”
–Mamdani announced that Ramzi Kassem, a 9-11 terror lawyer, is going to serve as the city’s occupying chief counsel.
–Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, at the forefront of expanding federal funding for pandemic-era food and child care programs; those programs are now at the center of fraud allegations among the Somali immigration population in her home state.
–U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Monday that the Department of Justice has already arrested and charged 98 individuals with fraud in Minnesota, 85 of whom are of Somali descent.
–A child care center licensed under Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s administration raised eyebrows by having a publicly listed phone number leading to Walz’s office.
–The Health and Human Services Department announced Tuesday it’s freezing all child care payments to Minnesota amid allegations of widespread fraud.
–Police in Minneapolis have disputed a Somali run day care center’s claim that important documents disproving fraudulent activity were stolen.
–The small Business Administration is clawing back all grants to the state of Minnesota over its gargantuan fraud scandal.
–It’s been revealed that many of the fake child care centers had been donating to national Democrat races across the nation.
–Some federal TSA agents are revealing details of how Somali men have been flying potentially billions of dollars out of the U.S. inside their carry-on luggage in recent years with no one stopping them.
–Child care center fraud may have taken place in the state of Washington.
–Washington State Democratic lawmaker Lisa Wellman introduced a bill that would exempt the sharing of personal information in public records for all child care providers in the state amid investigations into alleged Somali day care fraud.
–Josh Williams, an Ohio lawmaker, claims there have been multiple reports alleging fraud of publicly funded child care programs.
President Donald Trump delivers a press conference addressing the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. President Trump discusses the operation, its international implications, and next steps as details continue to emerge. Watch LIVE on RSBN at 10:30 am EST on Jan. 3, 2026.
The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and said President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured and flown out of the country after months of stepped-up pressure by Washington — an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Donald Trump on social media hours after the attack.
Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas, the capital, as Maduro’s government immediately accused the U.S. of attacking civilian and military installations. The Venezuelan government called it an “imperialist attack” and urged citizens to take to the streets.
Fox News correspondent Lucas Tomlinson and drone expert Brett Velicovich discuss the indictment of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, the next steps for regime change in Venezuela and how a trial could play out.
Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson provides details on President Donald Trump’s announcement that Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured and flown out of the country during what Trump described as a ‘large-scale strike.’ #foxnews #world #trump #venezuela #maduro
The Venezuelan capital of Caracas was hit with overnight shock and awe after military operations resulted in extensive infrastructure damage and power outages. The scope of the operation is not yet clear, but a US official told Reuters Saturday morning on condition of anonymity that the strikes were indeed being carried out by the US military. Initial reports suggested not only US airstrikes but also Special Operations troops on the ground in Caracas.
.@POTUS on the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro: “The team did an incredible job… There’s no other country on Earth that can do such a maneuver.” pic.twitter.com/sbfEyVDgUf
The explosions across the capital city came after President Donald Trump deployed a navy task force to the Caribbean and raised the possibility of ground strikes against Venezuela over the past week. It would appear that these threats were not idle.
TRUMP COMPARES MADURO’S CAPTURE TO IRAN’S SOLEIMANI, ISIS
TRUMP: PLANNED TO GET MADURO 4 DAYS AGO, BUT WEATHER WAS BAD
TRUMP ON CARTELS: SOMETHING WILL TO HAVE TO BE DONE WITH MEXICO
TRUMP: MADURO TRIED TO NEGOTIATE AT THE END, I SAID NO
VENEZUELA VICE PRESIDENT DELCY RODRIGUEZ IS IN RUSSIA: REUTERS
TRUMP SAYS MADURO NOW ON A US SHIP AND BEING TAKEN TO NEW YORK
Full-scale military operations appear to be underway against Venezuela, with dozens of helicopters with the U.S. Army spotted over the capital of Caracas. pic.twitter.com/kIqfbGjOK4
Maduro has already been indicted in federal court in New York, per a statement from AG Pam Bondi.
Trump took to his Truth Social account to announce that Venezuelan socialist leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife had been captured and were en route by air out of the country.
In late 2025, Trump reportedly gave Maduro an ultimatum via phone: resign immediately, and Trump would offer safe passage for Maduro, his wife, and son, but Maduro refused, demanding amnesty and control over the military, which the U.S. rejected.
Frightening footage from Caracas.
Imagine you are having some drinks with your friends on a Friday night at a bar and then this happens pic.twitter.com/VMg28c22pd
Suspicions of a larger US action have been escalating for weeks as the Trump Admin pursued targeted strikes against alleged drug smuggling ships running like the Pony Express from Venezuela to waiting couriers in the Caribbean.
🚨 Excellent footage showing how coordinated and precise U.S. strikes were inside Venezuela
This was part of a broader campaign by Trump to oust Maduro, who is accused of corruption, drug trafficking, and helping to engineer the US migrant crisis, which resulted in numerous incidents of Venezuelan cartel militants (Tren de Aragua) engaging in kidnapping, torture, and murder on US soil. Maduro continued to deny any government involvement in the spread of these cartels and rejected evidence that his government benefits from billions of dollars in drug money transferred by cartels from the US into the Venezuelan economy.
Critics assert that the operation goes against Trump’s campaign promise to end the “forever war” policies of establishment elites (libertarians will probably be furious). However, from Trump’s perspective, eliminating a hostile communist regime that is a key ally of China and Russia in the western hemisphere fits directly into the administration’s “America First” policy.
🚨WOW: Venezuelan citizen records explosions in Caracas Venezuela just meters away from him as he drives his car. pic.twitter.com/kJFEvZl7Je
If the accusations against Maduro are true, then his government would represent a long-term threat to the stability of the US. And, it would appear that a “forever war” is not in the cards with Maduro in custody.
Furthermore, Venezuela is not the only country south of the border that protects the activities of drug cartels. It’s not the only country that helps migrants flood into the US.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has made multiple threats against the US in response to the strict border security and deportations. She is also suspected of shielding cartel operations from US interference. Sheinbaum is likely questioning her life decisions today as it becomes clear that Trump was not bluffing about replacing Maduro.
There is the issue of global political tensions with China and Russia and unrest in America as leftist activists once again exploit the event as an excuse to organize street mobs (as soon as the weather warms up, of course).
Then there is the question of the fast-approaching midterm elections. Trump will need to present clear justifications to the American people for grabbing a foreign leader.
If Trump stumbles on this, Democrats will seize on every opportunity label him a warmonger. They will assert that Trump is empire-building, trying to steal oil, and that Venezuela is “just the beginning.” Keep in mind, these are the same people who tried to rally Americans to support WWIII against Russia over Ukraine, but that fact will be glossed over in favor of the narrative that the Dems will “bring peace and stability.”
On the other hand, many conservatives are taking a “F*ck Venezuela” approach and argue that it’s high time something was done about an abusive and corrupt communist enclave in America’s backyard. Only time will tell if Trump’s actions garner favor or anger from his voter base.
One day after New York City’s first Muslim mayor, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, took office just twenty-four years after Muslim terrorists murdered nearly 3,000 New Yorkers in the 9/11 attack that destroyed New York City’s World Trade Center Twin Towers with hijacked passenger planes used as missiles, Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the replacement building built at Ground Zero, and over a dozen other state landmarks, to be lit in green Friday night to ‘celebrate’ Muslim American Heritage Month.
Muslim terrorists had previously tried but failed to bring done the Twin Towers with a truck bomb in 1993 that killed six people and wounded over a thousand.
Videos from the September 11, 2001 Muslim attack on the World Trade Center Twin Towers posted below. The Muslim 9/11 plot by al Qaeda terrorists ordered by Osama bin Laden involved a total of four known hijacked passenger planes–two that were flown into the Twin Towers, one that was flown into the Pentagon and another that crashed in rural Pennsylvania after brave American passengers fought the Muslim terrorists for control of the plane.
Hochul posted on X Friday evening, “The resilience, compassion, and contributions of Muslim communities help make our state stronger. Tonight landmarks across the state are lit green as New York celebrates Muslim American Heritage Month.”
The resilience, compassion, and contributions of Muslim communities help make our state stronger.
Tonight landmarks across the state are lit green as New York celebrates Muslim American Heritage Month. pic.twitter.com/5AFw9dsgof
Governor Hochul Issues Proclamation Recognizing Muslim American Heritage Month For the First Time in New York State
Sixteen State Landmarks To Be Lit Green in Honor of the Heritage and Culture of New York’s Muslim American Community
Governor Kathy Hochul today issued the first ever proclamation declaring January as Muslim American Heritage Month across New York State. Governor Hochul further directed 16 state landmarks to be illuminated green this evening in observance this month, and in celebration of the heritage and culture of Muslim Americans.
“Home to the largest Muslim American population in the nation, New York is proud to join in this month-long celebration, recognizing the values, faith and traditions of our Muslim American communities,” Governor Hochul said. “New York remains committed to being a beacon of hope, tolerance, and inclusivity that celebrates the diversity of its Muslim American population and protects them from Islamophobia, hate, bias, and harm.”
For the first time in state history, Governor Hochul has proclaimed the month of January as Muslim American Heritage Month in the state of New York. This designation recognizes the significant contributions Muslim Americans have contributed to society throughout history including in the arts, sciences, mathematics, technology, literature, music, medicine, and philosophy, and encourages the people of New York to take the opportunity to better appreciate, recognize, and understand the rich cultures, histories, and principles of the Muslim American community.
These 16 landmarks will be illuminated green in honor of Muslim American Heritage Month:
One World Trade Center Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge Kosciuszko Bridge The H. Carl McCall SUNY Building State Education Building Alfred E. Smith State Office Building Empire State Plaza State Fairgrounds – Main Gate & Expo Center The “Franklin D. Roosevelt” Mid-Hudson Bridge Grand Central Terminal – Pershing Square Viaduct Albany International Airport Gateway MTA LIRR – East End Gateway at Penn Station Fairport Lift Bridge over the Erie Canal Moynihan Train Hall Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Niagara Falls
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said, “While I was proud to be sworn in as our city’s first Muslim mayor yesterday, Muslims have been part of New York for centuries. We have built small businesses, raised our families, pursued every profession, enriched our culture and cuisine, and been a part of what makes our city what it is today. I am grateful for Governor Hochul’s leadership in recognizing these many contributions and ensuring that every January, Muslim New Yorkers can see ourselves reflected and recognized in a city and state that is also our home.”
Truth2Freedom's Blog 