Lesson 55b
Romans 13:8-14 · Mike Doyle · Jul 19, 2020
Romans (2018-21), No. 121
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926191936635

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, we are studying our way through Romans Lesson 55, which is Chapter 13, Verses 8 through 14. And last week, we spent a lot of time talking about love is the fulfillment of the law, which in essence, It's the fullness of the law, not the fulfillment of it. I like the word fullness better because it takes away the idea that I have some sort of obligation to fulfill. But as I walk in the spirit and because the Lord Jesus loved me, I love him and love others, I am exhibiting the fullness of the law. But I got to thinking this week, you know, We're in this situation or in these verses right here in chapter 13.

You know how Paul sets up his epistles. The first part of all of them is doctrine, position. He tells us who we are in Christ, how we got there, the circumstances and the principles under which he saved us and put us in Christ. And then the second half, he will say to us, take a look here. This is what it looks like in shoe leather. This is how it works out, and that's where we are now in chapter 13. But I wanted to point out an interesting thing. Starting in chapter 12, verse 1, is where the line starts in terms of application. And you'll notice that there are two directions of the application.

One is the vertical, between you the believer, me the believer, and God himself. And the other is the horizontal, which is believer to believer, the believer to the world that he's in, okay? It's very interesting, only two verses address this direction, almost all the way through chapter five from 14.3, I'm sorry, from 12.3 into 15, the middle of 15 is horizontal. So the, This way it's, I beseech you by the mercy of God to present your body a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable service, and don't be conformed to the world, right?

That's here. Now we've been talking for several weeks now on this level, and I think sometimes we get going so much into the do's and the don'ts of Christianity that we forget how we got there and that it starts to have the ringing of legalism rather than this is the behavior of a person who's in Christ. This is the normal spirit-energized, resurrected life of Christ being played out through the believer. The reason the instructions are here is so that we can see what it looks like. We don't know anything about how Christ's life looks like when we're first believers and young believers, and especially if we have come to Christ out of a legal circumstance or out of the world, we just think that, well, just give us the rules and we'll implement them. Oh, really?

You know, if you want to use probably the best example I know of is in Ephesians 5 when Paul tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Anybody, any man with any reasonable sense realizes that that's a total impossibility out of his own energy, his own focus, and his own desire. You can't do that. Christ loved me to the point that he became a man and died on a cross to take care of the sins of the world and he rose again.

Well, if I'm to be conform to his image on a conditional basis, that's what I'm headed for in terms of my condition. It's already true of me positionally, but if I don't know identification, and I'm not familiar with position and condition, and I'm not familiar with how grace really works, then the default position is to go right back to just tell me what to do and I'll do it, okay? Oh yeah, love my wife as Christ loved the church, no problem. I know in my own experience with and my experience doesn't verify the truth, but in my own experience in dealing with premarital counseling, if I say to a guy in a couple in a counseling session, here's what's required of you, that you love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, and you're to present her holy and blameless before Christ in love. If he says to me, no problem, I got this, that marriage is in trouble.

So it's a really interesting thing. So when we get here and we start talking about what does it mean that love is the fulfillment of the law, it's really critical that we understand we're not given a benchmark in which we must achieve in order to fulfill a law.

The law's already been fulfilled by us, and how was it fulfilled? I'm looking at 11 people on the screen. The law has been fulfilled in each one of you. How did it happen? What happened to you, or what did you do, or what happened for the law to be fulfilled in you? We identified with Christ at the cross. That's right. You died. What happened is that the law found you out, it grabbed a hold of you, and it put you in Christ, and it carried out the sentence on you. You died.

So the principle is really simple. We had in the last two weeks three guys that were executed in our country by the federal government. Once they were executed, was there any more requirements of them to live a life in this country that is legal? No, why not? Because they're dead.

They're separated. Positionally, every believer has been separated from law totally, and any kind of law obligation. So when you look at the fulfillment of the law, you're really looking at the fullness of law. When I and you live in an environment where we love, all we're doing is demonstrating the fullness of the law. We're not fulfilling it. We're just demonstrating the fullness, okay? Any questions so far? Yeah. Hi, J.D. Hey. Hey, guys. It's two sides. There's two sides to the coin, right?

There's the death, but then there's also the resurrection. Yeah. And I think that I think that's the fullness of love, which is the fulfillment of the law. It's not just the death. Would you agree? Yeah, the death, fear and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and my inclusion in it. Well, let me ask you this if the only thing that happened on the cross is that Christ died and there was no resurrection Is the law been fulfilled? No It hasn't why not? We know acceptance, I mean if I if I commit a capital crime and they execute me I'm not going to be resurrected but the law has been fulfilled about me and Well, we're talking about law, capital L, law, not just the law of the land. But I'll let the class answer. I'm interested in some responses.

The law was fulfilled in Christ. The salvation is a grace-based offer. But the law was fulfilled in Christ. So it was fulfilled. Salvation is by grace. So, whether that's through love, grace, you know, is love, and love is a fulfillment, but the law was fulfilled in Christ. The resurrection proves that God accepted the payment. That's right. The resurrection just proves that God accepted the sacrifice that not only solved the sin issue, but it separated Christ and all those who would believe in him from the entire old earthly system, where brand new creatures in Christ resurrected.

It's like I'm freed from my sins because of Christ's death, not because of his resurrection. The resurrection, I think, is the demonstration that the Father was satisfied with, well, I'll put it another way. The eternal covenant was is if you become a man and die for the sins of the world, that's your part, what's my part? The Father's part was I'll raise you up again. The raising up is a proof that Christ fulfilled his side.

And his side, the primary issue on his side was the payment, not only the payment for sin, but the actual doing, separating all those in Christ and Christ from the whole thing of sin itself. And that included law, because what law did is stimulate the sin nature. It didn't encourage it to do better. Okay, JD? Yeah, I think there's maybe some more there, but we can agree that for sure the law has been fulfilled through what Christ has done. And when I say that, I mean the death row and resurrection.

But yeah, for him it wasn't I mean, it wasn't new life, per se, but for us it is, so there's just some nuances there that would be interesting to think through, but yeah. Okay. I think the one thing I'm focusing on in verse eight is this, in the New American Standard, I think it says, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. The language, I think, should say, for he who loves another has shown the fullness of the law. That's different. Yeah, I agree with that.

The idea that I have to arrive at any standard or fulfill anything puts me right under legalism. So when you go to verse 9, it says, for the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet. If there be any other commandment, it's all summed up in this. You shall, oops, I'm gonna get over here. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Now, how many Christians have come to you and said, well, that means that the first thing I have to do is to love myself, so I gotta get in some sort of self-actuating program to learn how to love me, and then I'll be able to love others. Why doesn't that work? Why wouldn't it work? Nobody wants to answer, huh? Tom, I gotta... Because you're depending on yourself. Say that again? Because you're depending on yourself when you're doing the program. That's exactly right. The focus is on you to perform. Okay?

So, love your neighbor as yourself. from a practical standpoint, again, it's like loving your wife as Christ loved the church. You're not gonna love anybody without the life of Christ in you, it just isn't gonna happen. Because it's always gonna be a condition. And we're not talking about, when you go to love your neighbor as yourself, do you put conditions on yourself?

No, you don't. The point I wanna stress is that all of the manifestations of the life of the Lord Jesus must be produced in us by the Holy Spirit to produce that resurrected life that we already have. None of this is sourced in me as a human being in Adam, none of it. So I think you have to keep that distinction in mind when we talk about how am I supposed to live this Christian life?

Verse 10 says, love does no harm to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Or again, the fullness of the law. So let's look at question five. In verse 11 it says, and do this, knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

So my question, my first question in five was, this word time, season, a special, critical, strategic period of time. What strategic period of time is it now? What time is he talking about? There's a difference between chronological time, like it's, whatever it is, quarter after nine, and it's ticking along and we're gonna live the minutes of this day. And then this word is karyos, which means a particular season. What season are we living in right now?

The end times. You think it's the end times? No, I think it's a season of grace. That's right. That's what it is. We're living in the season or the special environment of grace. So when we live in this special, strategic period of time, which is called the age of grace.

So one of the commenters defined it as not the time abstractly, but the time They lived in, with its moral import, its critical place in the working out of God's design. We're studying the Old Testament on Wednesday nights, so we've been going through the patriarchs.

We're in Exodus right now. The Jews aren't under the law yet, but there's coming a time shortly with them where they are going to be placed under the Mosaic law system. That'll be a time. That'll be a specific karyos time. It's time regarded as having a character of its own, full of significance for us. Now, we live under the age of grace.

It's nice to say that, but if you look around Christianity, most Christian environments, churches, are under some sort of mosaic law system, and they have totally missed the time. You see that? When you live in the time of grace, it means the operating system of the time in which we live is grace only, and you can't admix law with it in any sense. We spent a whole year last year going through the book of Galatians. It's very clear that we live under grace now, and this is the time of grace is maybe the way to say it.

Okay. It's kind of cool that this word has also been used to use, or to be translated, opportunity. Yeah. So I just saw that, and I was just looking through that word, and while we have the opportunity to do so, And it goes on to talk in, I think, 6, 10, or whatever it was, but treat others in the household of God as, you know, with love. And so it's interesting that opportunity comes with that time or season translation as well. Yeah. So that's exactly right. And it's important for us to understand that, that we actually function and operate only in the time of grace. If we in any way operate out of law, we're operating out of somebody else's season, so to speak.

Now, in the verse it says, knowing that the time now is high time to awake out of sleep. What do you think sleep means here? Sleep is an interesting word. In the Greek it means lethargic, non-aggressive, Lazy Christian life. The opposite of knowing the time of, the time of sleeping. So we're not talking about, when he's encouraging someone to, high time to wake out of sleep, is he saying, come on boys, wake up. What's he asking them to wake up to? We just said it. What's he want us to wake up to? He wants us to enter fully into the time we live in, which is grace.

You see that? And I think a lot of us as believers sometimes we're cruising along. And I think in this age of grace, the best description of any of us is that we're servants of the Lord. That's what we are. And servants get up early and they go to bed late. Anyway. So the time, wake out of sleep, and for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Does that mean the time's running out? I thought you were already saved. So what are we talking about here? At some point, the church will be raptured. And after that, that period of grace ends. OK. So it leads to answer that part of question five. There's a reason I put question six in there.

Question six says, describe the three tenses of salvation. What are they? First of all, let's just identify what the three tenses are. There's a present tense, there's a past tense, and there's a future tense. So in the Bible, in the epistles, you will see salvation in all three of those tenses. So if I were to say, well, okay, let's just deal with one. My salvation is in past tense. How can I say that? What happened in the past that resulted in my salvation? Anybody? You don't know? Christ died for us. Christ died.

What happened was is that when I was saved and when you were saved, your guilt And your penalty for sin was totally removed from you. You're not guilty anymore, and you are not gonna pay a penalty for your sinfulness. That's already happened, it's in this past. And the positive part of that is that you entered into the righteousness of God. You have a right standing before God that was accomplished then and will never go away, okay? And if you want to look at that, you can look at 2 Timothy 1, 8, 9.

Now, okay, and that's where most believers live, that yeah, Christ died for me, my sins are paid for, my guilt is gone, and I have the righteousness of God. That's what we call justification, okay? How would I describe my present salvation? Sanctification. Sanctification. Okay, so describe what that, what sanctification is in 140 words or less. That's the setting, setting us apart to be conformed to the image of Christ. Okay. Is it a continuous process? Yes. Yeah, it's going on all the time.

And who's doing the work? The Holy Spirit's doing the work. So this is a continual process of the Holy Spirit's work in a believer's life. And what's that Spirit doing? He's doing the work. You're the recipient of the work. What's his goal? What's he doing? Tom raised his hand in this class. Tom said that the Holy Spirit's job is to take the life of the Lord Jesus and make it real to the believer moment-by-moment. Anybody else? What's the goal? Romans 8, 29. The spirit of God is at work on a moment-by-moment basis from the day that you were saved of conforming you to the image of Christ.

Now, there's an awful lot entailed in that. One is to show us that we've been separated from the world, that we're united to Christ. He shows us our position. He creates in us a hunger for the things of God. There's a desire to take a look at and get immersed in the word of God, to learn what's true of us as believers. And probably the most important part of the Spirit's work in sanctification is to create an environment where we all have an ongoing, continual, growing desire right now to know Christ personally, face-to-face, more and more every day. You know, we want Him We wanted to be able to behold him personally. I have a friend in California that's pretty sick, and he's in a lot of pain, and unless something happens, he's probably gonna be in pain till the Lord takes him out of here.

And my other friend talks to him all the time, and what he says to him is, don't tell me about doctrine. I got enough doctrine. I need more than doctrine. What does he need? He needs a greater intimacy with Christ. He doesn't need more doctrine, so to speak. As important as doctrine is, I'm not discounting how important doctrine is, but the Spirit of God produces the fruit of the Spirit in me, which is the life of the Lord Jesus.

And it's a gradual, conforming process. So there's no such thing in the work of the Holy Spirit of some sort of instant leap into sanctification. And it's amazing, in just the several decades that I've been a believer, how many people come through town, Christian snake oil salesmen, and what they're selling is an instant leap into sanctification.

It doesn't work that way. It's a process that goes on, slowly, slowly, slowly. And you'll find these instant leaps, these methodologies, to become more spiritual all over the place. And that's not how he works. The sanctification's in the present tense. It's going on, and it'll continue to go on until we're out of here. Okay, what's the third tense? Glorification. I'm sorry? A glorification. Glorification. So what does glorification include? Resurrection.

What happens? Let's say the rapture happens this afternoon and we're out of here. What happens between here and meeting Christ in the clouds? I would think you guys would know this and be really thankful that this is going to happen, because a lot of you are old. It's going to be like him.

New bodies. Body. The body gets transformed into a glorious body. And it's perfect. And the manifest, it's a body now designed to handle this resurrected life that we have and will manifest the life of the Lord Jesus and glorify him. which is the great day in the future.

We all look forward to that day. So, again, so answering the question, what are the three tenses, or what are the three tenses of the word of salvation, which helps us understand that the word are is construed with nearer to salvation. We're nearer to what? We're nearer to the completion of the whole design of the work of salvation, so that we will Be like Christ, not only spiritually, but soulishly and bodily, okay? That's a really cool thing. It's a really cool thing to look forward to. So, can you guys, maybe it's only here. I've got overheads. Can you see the overheads or are you just seeing me? Just seeing you.

Okay, verse 12. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. So the night is far spent. What's he mean by the night is far spent? And the day is at hand. Okay, simple word. If I say it's far spent, what's it mean? It's about over. The night is about over.

And I don't know how many of you ever get up real early in the morning and like especially in the fall and before it gets cold and go for a walk in the morning. You leave your house when it's dark. And as you're walking, you can see the glimmer of light start to come from the east. And as you walk, it gets brighter and brighter. So the night is far spent and the day is at hand.

So what does he mean by that? Does he mean the same thing that he just said in the previous verse? Our salvation is nearer than when we first believed? I think so. I think it's pretty much the same thing. We have to realize where we are. Where do we live in terms of We're in the time of grace. I think we're towards the end of it.

In biblical terms, what does night represent? It represents darkness. And what does darkness represent? It says in the verse, let us cast off the works of darkness. What do you do in the darkness? Evil. That's right. You sin. Turn off the lights so I can sin.

So, and let us put on the armor of light. So what do you think he means to lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light? What is he talking about there? And probably a greater question is, has the answer to that question already been laid out in the book of Romans? And if you say yes, you have to explain.

So nobody's talking. I know how that works. We're living in the night now. I mean, the world is in darkness. We're darkness, and we live in a dark world. And that's what, I mean, maybe it's different where you live, Cheryl. But the world I live in is pretty dark. It is. It is here, too. So we're talking about focus, as Donna says. We're talking about, we're not too far We're positioned in the light, correct? That's our position. Conditioning, we're not. We're living in darkness. All you gotta do is watch the news. And so when he says, cast off the works of darkness, what's he talking about? I think he's telling us to just to focus on Christ And let the Spirit work in us.

A lot of Christians believe that salvation is just an excuse to sin. They've got their ticket to heaven and they keep it in their pocket and they can do whatever they want, sin as much as they want. But it's not an excuse to sin. It's a key to becoming more holy like Christ.

So let me ask you this question then, everybody. Are we asked to lay aside the deeds of darkness in order to become less evil, or to put on the armor of light so that we can become more holy? I think it's which are you going to yield to, Romans 6, where we're gonna yield to the flesh or the spirit. It's not doing the work, it's who we yield to do the work.

Yeah, it's interesting that, again, back to what we first started with, when we see verses like this, we have a tendency to think, I've got to get busy here. I've got to energize my own efforts. I've got to be working really hard to cast off these dark deeds and get the light ones going so that I'm more acceptable to God. The problem is, is if we don't realize and believe the significance of being a new creature in Christ, resurrected in Him, Our attempt to accomplish that is totally out of the fleshly energy. I think you're right, Alan, that the dependence on the spirit is the only way this happens.

So when he says cast it off, it's really, I must, from what I know of the scriptures, from what I've learned, from what my understanding is from him, it becomes a matter of believing what has already been shown me in God's word. Mike, dare I get ahead, but the following verses come up with, if you're in darkness, you do all these things, sensuality, lust, you act like you're in the dark. The last verse says to cast off the darkness, but the very last verse says put on the Lord. So it's not of yourself. you know manifesting yielding to the spirit not yielding to the flesh so casting off is kind of what i was saying it's it's not yielding to the flesh and what is the product of that all the things drunkenness sensuality blood that is disparate a point out so it's it's yield yield to the spirit not to the flash here's here's another interesting thing about this uh... courtney and i just noticed the time we got one minute we're to put it off once and for all. In other words, we're not to be trying, you know, between eight and nine every morning, I'm gonna try to put off and put on.

We're to recognize it's a once and for all thing because we were included in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Now, from a practical experiential standpoint, You know, I may rest and walk by faith in the fact that it has been put off and the next thing I know I'm sinning. But the point is, is that my faith is directed towards a finished work of Christ, not a work that he still has to spend time accomplishing. He's already done it and my faith has to be solid on what he's already accomplished. That's what putting off and putting on really means.

I don't believe that he's gonna do it, I believe that he did it already and that it's true of me and I can rest in that fact and those facts. Okay, I gotta stop there, it's 9.45. So we'll pick up at question eight next week. Thank you guys, good discussion. I'm gonna close in prayer. Father, how we thank you again for the grace that we live under and the fact that we are constantly learning and growing in the grace. and the knowledge of your dear son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his name, amen.