Romans 5 – It Is Finished

God’s wrath AGAINST us….

For the wrath of God is revealed AGAINST all ungodliness and unrighteousness ~ Romans 1:18

The word translated against in Greek is “epi” which is a preposition. The root of the word means UPON or TOWARDS.

Against is defined in the dictionary as in opposition to. This keeps us thinking God is angry and oppposed to us. We read it with a lens of sin consciousness.

Instead His wrath/passion (the finished work of the Cross) was toward us or upon ALL. Upon also means the response or effect of the envisioned contract – God’s vision saw us IN CHRIST and Jesus’ response to the contract or covenant He made with the Father was to take our sin and give us His righteousness

If we read Romans 1:18 and replace against with upon or toward….. “The wrath of God is revealed upon or toward all ungodliness and unrighteousness” — when we read it through the lens of the finished work and in conjuction with v. 17 and look at the root of “epi”, then it begins to sound an awful lot like Romans 5.

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (7) For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. (8) But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (9) Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” ~ Romans 5:6-9

Just a thought

God’s great mercy………

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them. ~ Genesis 1:27

made in his image

That has become one of my favorite verses lately. It’s our blueprint… our original design. No matter what mankind may look like on the outside, no matter what sins we may commit, this is truly who we were created to be and how God sees us – because He always sees us according to our potential in Him not as we are at the moment.

The very first man walked in that design, and all mankind afterward were supposed to walk in the same pattern. But although Adam was created in that design and walked in it for at least a few days, he sinned and introduced sin and consequently death into ALL the world.

SIN DIDN’T MAKE US SINNERS

All men born after him forgot they were born in God’s likeness and image. Adam gave birth to Seth and in the verse the order is reversed… instead of image and likeness it says likeness and image. I believe that reveals man’s distorted view of who they were. Genesis 5:3 “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” Sin had been introduced into the world through Adam’s disobedience.

Sin in the Greek is hamartia and means to miss the mark. To sin is to behave out of tune with God’s original harmony. It is to believe a lie about ourselves. It is to miss out on sonship. Sonship is our blueprint… our true, original, chosen design. Ephesians 1:5 “He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will…”

God’s timing was absolutely perfect.

He always had a plan to redeem us. He had found us in Christ before He lost us in Adam! Ephesians 1:4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” He always loved us too much to leave us in such a wretched state…. God never abandoned His creation! Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God’s great mercy is FAR reaching and ALL encompassing. Just as it took Adam’s one act of sin to condemn ALL of mankind, it only took Jesus’ one act of righteousness to completely declare ALL mankind innocent. Romans 5:18 “So here is the result: as one man’s sin brought about condemnation and punishment for all people, so one man’s act of faithfulness makes all of us right with God and brings us to new life.” Freely acquitted in the sight of God.

Through Adam, we were ALL were condemned and death reigned in BUT through Jesus, we are ALL declared righteous and life reigns in us.

Jesus’ death and resurrection reconciled us back to God (2 Cor 5:19) and to our original design of sonship. The sin nature has been completely removed and we received a new heart.. a new spirit… His Spirit. Ezekiel 36:26-27 “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.”

Jesus defeated sin and death ONCE and for ALL.

God did not love us more once we were reconciled. Reconciliation simply made us free to realize how much He has always loved us and free to enjoy our redeemed original identity — made in His image and in His likeness. To see ourselves as He sees us — IN CHRIST. Free to enjoy sonship and all of it’s joys and privileges. And not just to see ourselves in this new light, but our old ways of seeing others is over as well (2 Cor 5:16). We are now to see everyone through the eyes of our Redeemer.

He has made us ambassadors or ministers of His reconciliation with the world. Our lives are now to exhibit the urgency of God to persuade everyone to be reconciled to God — because Jesus took their life to the Cross in exchange for His resurrected life in them. He did a finished, completed work on the Cross for ALL mankind.

The language of the Old Covenant… of the old written code was “Do in order to become”. The language of the New Covenant is “Be, because of what has been done.” It’s simply a matter of saying yes to God through faith in the shed blood and resurrection of Jesus. It’s simply a matter of the lost awakening to their righteousness… of seeing themselves as God already sees them…. IN CHRIST. So that then they will be able to say “I once was blind, but now I see.”

God’s great mercy for mankind is seen in the riches of His goodness toward us and His absolute passionate refusal to let us go. His Covenant love for us is because He continues to hear the echo of His image and His likeness in us.

I love the Mirror Translation of Romans 3:23-26:

Humanity is in the same boat; their distorted behavior is proof of a lost blueprint. (24) Jesus Christ is proof of God’s grace gift; He redeemed the glory of God in human life; mankind condemned is now mankind justified! (25) Jesus exhibits God’s mercy. In His blood conciliation, God’s faith persuades mankind of His righteousness and the fact that He has brought closure to the historic record of their sins (not by demanding a sacrifice but providing the sacrifice of Himself). Jesus is the unveiling of the Father’s heart toward us. (26) All along God refused to let go of mankind. At this very moment, God’s act of righteousness is pointing them to the evidence of their innocence, with Jesus as the source of their faith.

It is the revelation of God’s goodness that leads men to repentance, not our repentance that leads to God’s goodness.

~ Robin

Enemy of Israel…. healed!

And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath ~ Luke 4:27-28

I started this blog post 2 weeks ago but a death in my immediate family forced me to put my study on hold. Now that life has resumed back to normal, I’m excited to start blogging once again.

We had been talking about Jesus’ teaching of Isaiah 61:1-2 in the past two blogs (see Jesus is our Jubilee and The widow of Sidon) and the people of Nazareth’s response to His teaching. He was revealing to them that He had come to be a light and a blessing… to show forth His salvation… to the Gentiles (unbelievers) as well as the Jews.

He was reminding them of their covenant responsibility to co-labor with Him in being a blessing to ALL the families of the earth (Genesis 12:3)…. He had blessed them to be a blessing… and to release that blessing to ALL we come in contact with.

This example that He gave was unthinkable to their natural reasonings! The widow represented Gentile sinners which was bad enough….. BUT Naaman represents much more than that… he was the captain of the Syrian army… the Syrians oppressed Israel. They were enemies of Israel. Much in the same way that the Romans were the oppressors of the group sitting and listening to Jesus.

Surely Jesus wasn’t asking them to be a light and a blessing to their oppressive enemies, was He?

Remember, God’s heartbeat is for the nations. He was so intent on showing the Israelites His love and compassion for ALL people, and that ALL people can have faith in God, that He chose one of the most hated men in Israel at that time to prove it. God in His mercy pursued Naaman…. there were MANY lepers in Israel but none of them were healed except Naaman the Syrian (Luke 4:27)

The Syrians were always terrorizing and attacking Israel and then taking prisoners back to Syria… and on one of these raids, Namaan carried off a little girl from Israel and made her his wife’s servant (2 Kings 5:2).

2 Kings chapter 5 opens with the Lord allowing Syria to win a battle, although we don’t know who the other side is. The Bible also tells us that Naaman was mighty, honorable to his King (King Aram) and strong in battle. But his military strength and glory were marred by an incurable disease of leprosy.

This little girl that he kidnapped tells Namaan’s wife about the prophet Elisha and that Naaman could be healed if only he were with him.

I love the little girl in this story… she is definitely a co-laborer with God…a minister of reconciliation. She is extending the light and the blessing to the one who took her captive. She has complete faith that if Naaman were to see Elisha he would be healed! She had faith in her God that He is not only able to heal but is also willing to heal…. even an enemy of Israel!

While this story in Luke 4 is a rebuke to the people listening to Him that they are neglecting their covenant role of being blessed to be a blessing to ALL the people of the earth… thankfully, however God doesn’t just rebuke us and leave in our neglectful condition. It is also an invitation to be His ambassadors of unconditional love… God’s love that He poured out into our hearts (Romans 5:5) … to even our enemies… those who oppose us… oppress us… or even enslave us (as Namaan did to this girl).

Namaan goes to see Elisha. An enemy of God, one who has attacked, killed, plundered Israel, one who has leprosy… an outcast of outcasts is standing at the door of the man of God hoping to be healed. He comes carrying as gifts 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and ten sets of clothing and with his horse and chariot and wealth. What a sight Namaan was… power, prestige, a commanding presence. He had yet to acknowledge with the psalmist that “Some nations boast of their chariots and horses, but we boast in the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 20:7).

But rather than respond to such pomp and circumstance as Namaan was undoubtedly used to people doing…. rather than come personally, Elisha sends a messenger to him telling him to go and wash 7 times in the Jordan River and he will be made clean. God alone would get the glory for healing Namaan… not Elisha… because Namaan was expecting Elisha, the prophet of God, to heal him… he didn’t even know the God of Israel yet. His trust was in a man whom he assumed had “magical” powers.

Naaman comes from a pagan country, where his “prophets” made quite a spectacle when they healed the sick. According to the Bible Commentaries, they raised their hands in the air and shouted for the sick to be healed.

But God was after Naaman’s heart not just in healing his physical body… He was pursuing Namaan in love!

However, Naaman almost misses his miracle healing because of pride and self-importance. The first words out of his mouth were “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage. He went away more than just mad… the word used means wrath, rage, full of poison and venom.

Naaman thought! He had a preconceived idea of how he thought his healing would come about.

How many times have we missed or almost missed our miracle because we thought God would do something the way we preconceived it? We had it all figured out in our minds! Thank God He is not bound to the limitations of our preconceived ideas or the boundaries of our thinking!!

Let’s let go of our limited expectations and have faith in the God of Israel and His limitless way of manifesting miracles in our life.

Naaman thought the resources he trusted in were better than what God was providing. He said the rivers in Damascus are better than Israel…. they are tov. Tov in Hebrew is good… to be in proper working order, the way it was meant to… the way God created it to work. Naaman’s pagan ways were far from tov! He lived in a culture that didn’t function the way God created us to live. We were created to love Him… not to serve false gods.

He was asked to do nothing less than to betray the faith of his fathers. He was being asked to be willing to acknowledge that there was a possibility that Israel’s God could do something the Syrian god was unable to do. Naaman would have to let go of everything he trusted in and trust God for his healing. The Jordan means to descend… Namaan would have to humble himself… to descend… to lower himself in order to be made clean.

And this was exactly what Jesus was saying to the people in the synagogue listening to Him that day… if they wanted salvation, they were going to have to let go of everything they trusted in… their adherence to the law…their good works…. and admit they were the poor, the blind, the oppressed, unclean.. that they were no different from Namaan.. or for that matter their Roman oppressors…in need of a Savior. Instead of responding to the rebuke and the invitation to release His goodness and His presence… His salvation…. to the Gentiles (the unbelievers), they responded with offense.

So, after being encouraged by his servant to do what was asked of him, he steps out in faith and humbles himself by dipping in the dirty Jordan 7 times. Naaman experienced the overwhelming power, presence, and mercy of Israel’s God and his whole attitude changed. Naaman had a whole-hearted transformation: “Then Naaman and his entire party went back to find the man of God. They stood before him, and Naaman said, ‘Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.’”

When Naaman goes back to Elisha’s house – he’s a changed man! There is no mention of horses and chariots this time as he returns to Elisha. And he doesn’t just declare the goodness of God but that God is the only God in the entire world. This is a radical statement for a man of his time, living in a polytheistic society.

Naaman’s God is now the God of Israel and he declares he will only make sacrifices and offerings to God. Before he didn’t want to wash in the Jordan River, because the waters of Damascus, were better than any of the waters of Israel, and now he wants to take dirt from Israel (v 17).

The Bible Commentaries say: he wants to take dirt because God’s presence was in Israel. His solution to worshiping in Syria was to take Israeli dirt with him. He asks God to forgive him when he has to bow to other “gods” because of his obligation to the king. This gentile, knows it’s a sin to bow down to any other “god” that isn’t the God of Israel. Elisha blesses him and tells him to go in peace.

In Luke 4:27 Jesus says there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

God’s heart is for the Nations…. Naaman was a changed man… a redeemed man all because of one little Jewish girl who had compassion on him… her oppressor.

~ Robin