Today on Truth Time.
Forgiveness of sins isn't tangible.
You can't see or handle it.
You can only believe that it happened or you can reject it through disbelief or indifference.
So, as we see, shot at and missed by the limited forgivers.
Maybe they should reload and try again.
They need some new material.
If this verse, if it were telling anyone how to get their unforgiven sins forgiven, it would have read that their sins may be forgiven.
If someone refuses to believe the good news that God has forgiven them for the sake of his Son, rather than for the sake of themselves and on the merit of their own personal belief, then they are doing the opposite of receiving forgiveness of sins.
There's no scripture anywhere in Paul's epistles that says God is offering forgiveness in exchange for belief.
What Paul's gospel does say is it's a declaration of what is already done to be either received or rejected.
This is Truth Time Radio.
Truth Time Radio often marked but rarely avoided.
Funny how those who claim to have marked and avoided you are the very ones who know the most about you.
Alright, last time in our study of chapter 3 here in the book of Romans,
we showed the result of everything Paul had written so far and how that it was both Jews and Gentiles that are now on the same level, the same level in the sight of God because of Israel's fall.
So, today we're going to look at the terms, "by faith," and, "through faith,"
here in verse 30.
Is there a difference?
Yes, no, maybe?
If there's a difference, what is it?
Since the sentence that verse 30 is a part of starts in verse 29, let's start there.
Let's just back up and start in verse 29 here, Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: verse 30, Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
By faith and through faith, although related terms, have different meanings, two different terms for two different groups of people.
The common denominator for the means of justification for both the circumcision and uncircumcision is faith.
But the application, the application and the result of that faith for salvation is different for each group.
We need to grab hold of that.
Generally speaking, throughout scripture, by faith is applied to something
that can be expressed outwardly, you know, things that can be seen of others, while through faith is expressed toward what is inward, such as believing, trusting, thinking.
We often see accounts of good works and deeds being done by faith and the reception of information done through faith.
There's a difference.
We see many examples of this in God's word.
Hebrews 11, Hebrews 11, there you'll find several verses of works done
outwardly by faith.
Yet, we see the words through faith used to describe how Sarah received
strength to conceive seed.
This was not an outward work that Sarah did, it was an inward reception of strength given to her by God.
It was something unseen.
The word "by" almost always indicates source or motivation for an outward work when associated with a believer exercising their faith.
When something is done by faith, we can usually see it performed.
The term, "by faith," answers the questions, why or how?
The circumcision shall be justified by faith.
And that's faith proven by works.
That's what declares them righteous, just as we find in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 25.
"Through" is a directional word.
When we think of going through something, we understand that we cannot go through something without being in it, right?
So, through faith will always answer the questions, when or where?
We receive something through faith by receiving it in faith.
The uncircumcision is justified through faith by receiving the gospel
in faith.
These two methods for justification, which means to be declared righteous, are not the same.
One includes works by faith, and the other discludes works through faith. Any outward obedience to God is performed by faith, while inward reception of his word as truth is through faith.
Let's look at some examples in Paul's epistles of God's word being received as truth for examples of what is done through faith.
In 1 Corinthians 15:1 here, Paul, he's outlining our gospel, and he recalls that both he and the recipients of this letter had already received the gospel he had preached to them.
It was brought to them in the form of spoken words, not something tangible
to be seen or touched, but information to be heard and believed.
Paul delivered words to them, and their reception of those words as it is in truth, the word of God was through faith.
Paul demonstrates this pattern of receiving the word of God through faith here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 13 as well.
He says, For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
You see, we received God's word through faith by counting it as truth and believing it.
Some more examples of how information is received as the word of God in truth through faith, look at Romans 5.
Romans chapter 5, and let's get verse 11, verse 11, Romans chapter 5 verse 11, And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
Christ's atonement was presented to God the Father with a sprinkling of his
blood on the mercy seat in heaven.
Hebrews is an excellent book, one that explains how the, the foreshadowing of sin sacrifices was fulfilled in Christ's atonement.
No one can come away from an honest reading of this here believing that Christ's atonement was presented to man for his acceptance instead of God.
No way, we hear some teach that.
That's, that's error.
When Paul wrote, We have now received the atonement, he means we who have believed have accepted the news as the word of God in truth through faith. Proof of this is found in the verses prior and following.
The reception of the atonement here in Romans 5:11.
Christ's death for sins of all the world, his burial and resurrection, as well as the salvific benefits of the believer in the gospel of Christ.
Paul describes what happened for the lost world as a result of the atonement, and goes on to describe salvation for those who have now received the atonement.
So, it's through faith that we receive the atonement by believing the good news Paul brought us concerning what it achieved, the gospel that was received by those at Corinth, the gospel that he praised the Thessalonians for receiving as the word of God as it is in truth.
We can only receive two types of items, those that are tangible and those that are intangible.
Anything that can be experienced with physical human senses, well, that's tangible.
But intangible things can only be received inwardly.
Reception of information as truth is receiving it through faith.
Here's an example.
Let's get an example of reception of information through faith that the limited forgivers they really struggle with.
Acts 26 verse 18, Acts 26:18, they struggle with this and they call it a gotcha' verse, but it don't get anybody.
Okay, Acts 26:18, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God,...
Now here comes the information that Paul, he hopes they will receive not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, just like 1 Thessalonians 2:13 said.
Now watch, ...that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
Hopefully you get this, forgiveness of sins isn't tangible.
You can't see or handle it.
You can only believe that it happened or you can reject it through disbelief or indifference.
So, as we see, shot at and missed by the limited forgivers.
Maybe they should reload and try again.
They need some new material.
If this verse, if it were telling anyone how to get their unforgiven sins forgiven, it would have read that their sins may be forgiven.
Pretty simple.
What is the opposite of receive?
Reject.
If someone refuses to believe the good news that God has forgiven them for the sake of his son, rather than for the sake of themselves, and on the merit of their own personal belief, then they are doing the opposite of receiving forgiveness of sins.
There's no scripture anywhere in Paul's epistles that says God is offering
forgiveness in exchange for belief.
What Paul's gospel does say is it's a declaration of what is already done to be either received or rejected.
Limited forgivers reject God's forgiveness, Christ's atonement, and the very gospel that tells us the sin debt was paid in full at the cross.
It's one thing to be ignorant of truth, but it's, to openly reject it is far worse.
To reject God's completed forgiveness and instead credit your own belief as being the incentive that moves God to do something he's already done, just so that you can reject it and claim that you got yourself forgiven instead, well, that's shameful.
Consider Paul's warning, that warning that he gave the Corinthians concerning their tendency to glory as if they were the source and the cause of what they had received.
You'll find it in 1 Corinthians chapter 4.
Over there in verse 7, For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?
Those who believe you're able to get God to forgive you by believing he's waiting on you to activate him, to move him to do it, those who think that he cannot forgive your sins unless he gets something in return from you first.
Those who think that the atonement is somehow given or applied to you upon your belief instead of being presented to the Father on your behalf nearly 2,000 years ago, Paul wants you to know why you are glorying as if you are the source and the reason of your own forgiveness from God.
Instead of it being freely given to you, like he praised the Thessalonians for.
When he said to them, When ye received the word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
When Paul went to the Thessalonians with the good news about the atonement of Christ, for the forgiveness of their sins to be completed, the burial and the resurrection unto eternal life, they basically just said, God said it through Paul, and that settles it for us.
They received it.
They didn't earn it through something they did.
They received it through faith, but the Corinthians, they wanted to boast in what they had received.
As though they had generated it themselves, kind of like the limited forgivers of today, as if they were the source of what they had and what they had learned.
As though they had earned it instead of receiving it.
Paul rebuked them for this attitude.
Anyone who doesn't believe sins were forgiven at the cross, hey, they'd do well to take this into consideration.
If our belief activated God's forgiveness, then we could glory.
We could glory as though we didn't receive it from him.
We could act like we generated his forgiveness toward us on our own, which is contrary to the truth that was revealed to Paul.
It's exactly what all limited forgivers across denominations do.
But if we just received that which is declared as truth, that God has forgiven us on account of his son's atonement for our sins, then through faith, we receive it instead of heretically claiming to originate it.
Ironically, this deception of how through faith affects the reception of the atonement in Acts 26:18, it also contains a reference to, by faith.
Let's see if we can relate this "by faith" in Acts 26:18 to the "by faith" of Romans 3:30.
Verse 30 here says that the circumcision shall be justified by faith.
Acts 26:18 is actually Christ speaking, instructing Paul about what to tell the Gentiles concerning what happened to their sins, and about an inheritance for them that is among other believers who were already sanctified before Jesus sent Paul to the Gentiles.
Now watch, That they might receive forgiveness of sins, an inheritance among them, that are sanctified by faith that is in me.
Them that are sanctified here can only describe one group, the already
circumcised little flock.
Most missed this.
So, when Paul is describing for King Agrippa what Jesus said to him on the road of Damascus, he's sayin' that Jesus wanted him to take this gospel of the grace of God, the good news about how Christ's atonement forgave their sins, his burial, and resurrection to the Gentiles, so that they would receive that good news as the truth of God through faith in order to partake in the body of Christ inheritance as adopted children of God.
Adopted children among those the little flock, who were already sanctified by, not through, faith that they had in Jesus Christ.
Read Hebrews 11, go do that sometime and you'll see that Israel was required to exercise their faith in the form of outward works to maintain their salvation.
They had to endure until the end to be saved.
They believed God's promises as truth through faith, but they obeyed his instructions to do outward works by faith.
When we take this information and apply it to Romans 3:30, it becomes clear.
There is now no difference between the circumcision, Israel, and the uncircumcision, Gentiles, and that faith is the vehicle by which justification is achieved for both groups.
This is good, how this unfolds.
I hope you're all seeing this.
In time past, Gentiles, they had to go through Israel in order to receive God's word through faith.
But now, no more.
Acts 15 also describes this, and it's why a letter was sent out to the Gentile churches to let them know that they were not required, to keep the law as the Judaizers over there were trying to convince them by corrupting them from the simplicity that is in Christ.
For the believing circumcision, the little flock, their justification required outward works being done by faith.
In James's letter to them, he asked, James 2:14, he said, What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
When you read the next two verses, the obviously implied answer is a resounding, No!
James says that faith alone does not save anyone.
He further says point a couple of verses later, verse 17, Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead being alone.
And verse 18, watch this, Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
James says faith without works is dead, plain and simple.
People try to spin this.
We've heard, but no, it's plain.
You can get that.
It's straight up, straight truth there for you.
He says that faith without works can't save.
Fortunately, he's not talking to us.
He's talking to the little flock.
We can't overlook the fact that he's telling them that their reception of God's word as truth through faith is not enough to save them.
They also have to do works, and those works have to be done by faith.
And then we find it very interesting that we've got a complete, a completely different take on Abraham being counted as righteous than what we'll get from Paul in Romans chapter 4.
Paul says Abraham's faith alone is counted as righteousness.
But James 2, he states, But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
(Verse 22) Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
(Verse 23) And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
(Verse 24) Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
So, who's right, Paul or James?
When we get further into this study in the next chapter, Romans 4, we'll see that they are both right.
Just talking to different audiences with different gospels, Galatians chapter 2 verse 7.
Different audience, different gospels, different purposes, and different hopes.
James 2 just clearly explained what Paul meant by the circumcision being justified by faith in Romans 3.
A clear truth for the little flock, no works to prove their faith equals no justification for them.
But for the body of Christ, if we try to work to earn our justification, that's the opposite.
That's the opposite of our gospel.
And as Paul told us, it's another that isn't another.
Which won't save anyone.
Not today.
Since Israel has fallen from their elevated status, that means every lost person alive today qualifies as the uncircumcision in the but now dispensation of grace.
For the uncircumcision only the receiving of the gospel, which is through faith, is required for justification.
No works added.
There's no maintenance program for us.
How does one receive the gospel?
By believing the salvation doctrine that Paul preaches, believing that it is the first Thessalonians 2:13 word of God in truth.
Here where we are in Romans 3, Paul is, he's still explaining why and how Israel fell, and how they are now no longer favored above any Gentile.
These Jews here in Paul's Roman audience, they need to hear, they need to hear this in order to be saved according to Paul's gospel of the grace of God.
By faith is outward, through faith is inward.
By faith, something is performed, through faith, something is received.
That's a pretty simple breakdown of this.
The circumcision had to perform works by faith to be justified.
The uncircumcision had to receive the gospel through faith by believing it is the word of God given to them, and not the word of man.
Now we've come to verse 31.
This verse ends the chapter, but this topic will carry over to chapter 4. But let's end it here.
Let's end it with the "through faith" of verse 31, Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
See that?
This is a valid concern for those in Paul's audience who were born under the law.
The question here is, does this faith alone with no works, does this gospel make God's perfect law to be meaningless?
Paul answers with yet another, God forbid.
To think that God's law is of no good and is useless or without holiness, that's forbidden.
That is a forbidden mindset.
Instead, Paul confirms that the law is established through faith.
Why?
Because nothing has ever been done by faith without coming from that which is received as the word of God in truth through faith.
Without someone, namely Moses, receiving the law as the word of God in truth through faith, it would have not been established as a way to be justified by faith as a means of salvation for Israel.
That is how the law was established through faith.
Okay, we'll close here.
Just remember, all information received from God as truth during all dispensations has been received through faith.
Get that.
And all good works that have ever been done throughout all dispensations on account of faith have been done by faith.
Don't miss this difference.
Anyone who believes God through faith is counted righteous.
We'll go over more of this in chapter 4, but Israel has always been required to perform works by faith in order to be declared righteous, which is the definition of justification.
The body of Christ is only required to receive our gospel through faith,
because we're declared righteous, justified on the account of Christ by the faith of Christ that Paul preached, and not on the merit of our own works. We're still called to do good works by faith.
As we were created in Christ unto them, Ephesians 2:10, but works aren't our justification.
Christ is.
Galatians 2:16.
The question is how are the circumcision and the uncircumcision justified, and hopefully this podcast has answered that question for you.
You only get two educations.
The one you're given, and the one you give yourself.
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