Bible Study in Romans 8, verses 1 to 9, who walk after the Spirit

 

Romans 8:1 ¶  There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. 3  For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4  That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5  For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9  But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

 

This is an amazing chapter in the Bible that should give comfort to every Christian who reads it. Unfortunately, it has been misused by too many preachers to try to control their congregations with guilt and self-contempt. This is a contrast between saved and unsaved not someone’s idea of what it means to be a good Christian or a bad Christian.

 

If you are in Christ, if you have received Him as your Saviour, then you are not condemned, and there is no condemnation in you. It is not literally saying there is no condemnation in you as long as you are a good boy or girl. It is saying that those who are in Christ Jesus are not condemned but eternally saved. Those who are in Christ Jesus walk after the Spirit. It also doesn’t say that the Christian is not accused or that the Christian has done nothing worthy of condemnation. It doesn’t say there is no affliction, no suffering, no chastening, or no tribulation for the Christian. It says you stand uncondemned because of Christ, not because of anything you did.

 

The Law could not accomplish this. It was wholly unable to do this. We can be justified and sanctified in Christ and not be held guilty for our sin by virtue of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. Paul explains here clearly why those who have not received the Spirit of God and of Christ, the Holy Spirit, named the Holy Ghost elsewhere, cannot please God because they are in their flesh, judged and tainted by a sin nature. If the Spirit of God dwells in a person they do please God because of Christ. Here is evidence that a person has that Spirit abiding in him or her. First, the promise, then the evidence.

 

John 14:23  Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

 

Galatians 5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

 

Here is what God does in separating flesh from soul in His own spiritual circumcision.

 

Colossians 2:11  In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12  Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

A Psalm for Sunday, Psalm 84, the sparrow hath found an house

 

Psalm 84:1 ¶  «To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm for the sons of Korah.» How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! 2  My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. 3  Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God. 4  Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah. 5  Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. 6  Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. 7  They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

 

This remarkable Psalm opens with one of the most interesting verses in the Bible. The Psalmist pleads how wonderful God’s tabernacles are and how he cries out for the living God.

 

Psalm 27:4  One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.

 

Isaiah 40:31  But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

 

Then, he speaks of the sparrow and the swallow finding a house and a nest on the altars of God. Clearly there is a link here between the tabernacle that God had the Israelites build and the tabernacle of His creation, the book of nature He has written.  But it says literally that those birds find safety in their home on God’s altars. It can also refer to the Psalmist saying that even the seemingly unimportant creatures find a home in God’s tabernacle, something the Psalmist envies as he wishes to be close to God at all times. Do the birds in the morning sing praises to God?

 

In whatever case, those that dwell in God’s house are blessed and will praise God as the source of their strength. The priests and the Levites are there. A reference is made to the valley of Baca as a valley of springs. Since Baca refers to a valley of weeping according to Strong’s dictionary it seems like the Psalmist is saying that tears shall be turned to blessings under God’s care. The idea in these last verses of this passage is that those who dwell in God’s tabernacles are overflowing with blessings as they stand before the God of Israel and the whole earth.

 

Psalm 84:8 ¶  O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah. 9  Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed. 10  For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 11  For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. 12  O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

 

Psalm 27:1 ¶  «A Psalm of David.» The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

 

See the sentiment expressed early in the Psalms.

 

Psalm 3:3  But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.

 

Psalm 5:12  For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

 

And then later in Psalm 91.

 

Psalm 91:4  He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

 

Pleading with God to hear his prayer the Psalmist symbolizes God as a shield to His people, those set apart for His purpose and here, with the use of thine anointed perhaps speaking directly as the king or for the king, God’s king. He would rather work the lowest post in the temple than live with the wicked or to particularly wallow in their filth. God is our protection from wickedness, from wanting to do wickedly. If we pursue God’s ways no good thing will be withheld from us and all are blessed who trust in Him.

 

Speaking of the doorkeeper reference think of this verse;

 

Revelation 3:12  Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

 

These promises of God fall on the Old Testament Jew as well as the New Testament Christian, both Jew and Gentile. God is our protection, not only from our enemies, but from the sin that grinds us down to poverty, helplessness, disease, and despair. We have only to turn to Him to be freed from the sins that so easily beset us.

 

1John 1:9  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

This Psalm promises God’s enduring protection and consolation, and, in fact, pleads for them.

 

Revelation 21:4  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Bible Study on Romans 7, verses 14 to 25, the flesh works against the spirit

 

Romans 7:14 ¶  For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16  If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

 

We all know that we are weak before sin because the human heart is a wicked thing. Paul acknowledges that he does things he does not want to do and doesn’t do things he should, just as you or I.

 

Jeremiah 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

 

But it is his sin nature that compels him, drives him forward, because in our natural heart is no good thing. The Law of God, which Paul delights in is at war with Paul’s sin nature, as it is with all of us.

 

In his comparison of death as in the body of this death who can save me from it there is a link to the judgment on Adam and all of mankind through history.

 

Genesis 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

 

And the dead works produced by our flesh.

 

Hebrews 9:14  How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

 

The works of the flesh indeed produce death but the fruit of the Spirit is life.

 

Galatians 5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 18  But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 19  Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20  Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21  Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 24  And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

25  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26  Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

 

Let’s review briefly, quickly and summarizing Paul’s argument up until now. In Romans 1, he outlines a religious history of mankind that shows mankind is worthy of destruction and judgment as is the so-called righteous person who does the exact same thing as the unsaved in their behavior no matter who they claim to belong to.

 

In Romans 2 he asks how the Jew or we, for that matter, can defy God in our behavior and justify ourselves. He noted that the Gentile even has a conscience and moral standards as if they also had the Law and often they are more righteous acting than the Jew. We’ve seen that in our daily lives as all of us have probably known an atheist of a higher personal moral character than many Christians we have known. So, the Law and a law cannot possibly save us in and of itself.

 

The point there in chapter 2 is that judgment is coming and one can perish without the Law or one can be judged by it. But, mankind can be sure that judgment is coming on all mankind. God is going to judge mankind by Jesus Christ.

 

In chapter 2 Paul also accuses the Jew as we might accuse a Christian today as in how can you teach others in righteousness when you do yourself and have yourself the very same actions and  attitudes the infidel you are trying to reach has. Paul insists that the person who says they are a Jew and knows God’s will and can instruct others in the way of righteousness and yet commits the same wickedness as those they deem themselves worthy to instruct are wrong in their thinking.

 

In chapter 3, among other things, Paul said that being a Jew is a good thing, not a bad thing, but they have all fallen short of what they were supposed to be. The Law therefore does not produce the righteousness that God demands, only Christ can do that. The Jew must depend on Christ and understand that considering the Jewish track record regarding the Law they have failed. It is Christ alone who can save. This applies to all of those high-minded Christians who act like they think God is lucky to have them on His team, so to speak.

 

While James tells us in his letter that our works show our faith Paul tells us, however, in Romans 4, that our works do not justify us. Only the just Christ justifies the believer, the one who trusts in and has faith in Him.

 

One of the things chapter 5 shows us is that God’s love through Christ was given to us when we were yet sinners. We did not straighten out our lives and then get saved. Deathbed salvation experiences are risky things as you might die suddenly and unexpectedly. But, back to what Paul was saying, God’s love through Christ was ours when we were yet undone.

 

In chapter 6 Paul shows us that we are not under the power of sin anymore and have eternal life through Jesus Christ.

 

Bible Study on Isaiah 9, verses 8 to 21, his anger is not turned away

 

Isaiah 9:8 ¶  The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. 9  And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart, 10  The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. 11  Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; 12  The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 13  For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts. 14  Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. 15  The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. 16  For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed. 17  Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 18  For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke. 19  Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother. 20  And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm: 21  Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

 

Once Isaiah relays the promise of the Messiah to come all of Jacob’s house he turns back to the judgment on the kingdom of Israel. The prophecy of doom strikes like a thunderbolt on Israel. God accuses Israel of being proud and them insisting that whatever happens they will deal with it. They will bounce back, they think, better than before. God will set what will be the Assyrians against Syria, the Philistines and then Israel to devour them. God’s wrath will come down on Israel and destroy them completely because they will not turn to Him.

 

The elders that lead the people wrongly and the prophets that teach the people falsely and the people that follow them shall die. Famine and dismay will come over them and all Israel shall be against Judah and yet God still has enough anger for more judgment.

Bible Study on Romans 7, verses 1 to 13, Is the law sin

 

Romans 7:1 ¶  Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2  For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3  So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5  For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6  But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

 

Here is even more evidence in the first verse that Paul is talking to the Jews, making His argument for Christ to them. They are those that know the Law. This is a passage that is linked to those that have gone on before it on the relationship of the Law to the unsaved person, particularly to the Jew. This is not a declaration on the doctrine of marriage. The Jew was bound to the Law like a woman was bound to her husband. But, when the Jew becomes dead to the law by the resurrection and trusting in Christ he or she is part of the church and is married to Christ. Paul uses the idea of the Jew being dead to the Law in verse 4 and in verse 6. The Jew in Christ was dead to the Law and they are married to Christ, freed from the ties of his or her first union.

 

Sin bears fruit that leads to death, both physical and eternal.

 

Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

1Corinthians 15:56  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

 

James 1:15  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

 

Notice from verse 6 about the newness of spirit and oldness of letter and another comparison between the Old and the New Testaments.

 

2Corinthians 3:6  Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

 

Romans 7:7 ¶  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8  But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9  For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10  And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 11  For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12  Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. 13  Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

 

The Law is not regarded as something evil, and it is not sin. It makes us aware of sin and of our helpless state before God. We know something is wrong because God says it is wrong and against Him. This goes against the Calvinist who says that God made or created men to sin. God’s standard reveals our wickedness. Without God’s standard of righteousness anything goes. There is nothing holding back our lust to sin.

 

All humanity has standards in their cultures and religions that must be met but these only are shadows of God’s standard of righteousness, which He gave the Jews in the Old Testament. Most people have a conscience, but it can be seared and quenched. God’s standard of morality, of right and wrong, is sure, reliable, and convicts us of sin.

 

Here then an argument is answered. The Law does not cause us or the Jew to sin but makes them aware of their sin, convicts them of it, makes them know they are sinners. This is important to consider in regard to the fall of Adam. God allowed but did not make Adam commit the sin of disobedience. He made Adam aware of his sin. Adam stood before God a sinner and could not say he was otherwise. God allows us to sin to show us, to reveal our own wickedness of heart. God takes the lid off of our boiling cauldron of unrighteousness to show us that without His work we could not be saved.

Bible Study on Exodus 34, verses 1 to 9, the consequences of sin lasts for generations

 

Exodus 34:1 ¶  And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.2 And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. 3  And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount. 4  And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.

 

God will repeat the writing of the commandments on two tables of stone. Moses was to come up early and alone to the summit of Mount Sinai to receive those tables of stone. Everyone else was to stay away from the base of the mountain and no one was to come on the mountain except Moses. Moses is told to be ready in the morning. There is something to be considered about the morning. Will the church be called out, translated in Biblical terms or raptured in popular parlance, in the morning? Do a word search on the morning. Here are two prominent examples.

 

Psalm 30:5  For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

 

Psalm 130:6  My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

 

Exodus 34:5 ¶  And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6  And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7  Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. 8  And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. 9  And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.

 

Jehovah God descends in a cloud and stands with Moses on Mount Sinai. He declares His intentions, His attributes, including His mercy. What He declares for the Israelites in this circumstance is important for us to realize. Verse 7 is a statement of reality in a world under judgment, not a command for the Hebrews to perform. Note the following;

 

Micah 7:18  Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.

 

Deuteronomy 24:16  The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

 

There have been heathen cultures in history that punished entire clans for the crimes of one person and executed entire families for the sins of one of their members. An analysis of those cultures in history is not necessary here but it is not what God had in mind.

But in our reality, in a world under judgment, the sins committed by one generation have a ripple effect on future generations. It became fashionable, for instance, in 1960s America for people to cohabit without any commitment for life, making something that God had given us, sexual union with a mate, something no more significant than relieving oneself by the side of the road. Then, in the next generation there was a great increase in illegitimacy, abandoned children, and a demand for legal abortions which became a constitutional right in 1973 with Roe versus Wade. This was compounded in the next generation. By the 1990s there were millions of children living in poverty in single parent homes, often but not always due to choices made casually without consideration for future generations, and up to now, since 1973, more than 50 million babies have been executed before they could see the light of day. Truly, iniquity is visited on the third and fourth generations. Society is less stable than it could be and people are far more dependent upon government programs for help than they would have been if they had not bathed in this iniquity. Men, women, and children suffer untold psychological problems and are consigned to economic struggle because of these choices, in desperate need of the mind to appeal to God’s mercy, acknowledging Him as their sovereign and Lord in obedience. Of course, the trouble today is that we do not repent of sin so much as we try to justify it or make it not such a big deal further making the consequences for the guilty and the innocent worse.

Every time a so-called conservative Christian commits fornication with a live-in partner or even just a “significant other” with whom they have not made a life-long commitment they run the risk of bringing damage on the next few generations. It is simply the way life is, the lasting consequence of sin. Many a Christian has started a family in iniquity and suffered horribly because although God would forgive their sin they do not even seek repentance in their heart for it. You cannot start a family on the wrong note, refuse to repent in your heart of your sin against God and innocent children, and expect everything to turn out well.

Who are you to declare your sin as no big deal and demand that God forgive you and bless you without repentance? I wonder how many Christian men have married Christian women to “make it right” and yet never repented of the sin they were making it right for and yet expected God to remove any issues from their path to a happy, fulfilled future with their family.

Here in verse 8 is a physical act of worship.

Genesis 42:6  And Joseph was the governor over the land, and he it was that sold to all the people of the land: and Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth.

Bowing oneself to the earth is one of the postures of reverence and worship.

Sometimes people bow their head to worship God.

Genesis 24:26  And the man bowed down his head, and worshipped the LORD.

Sometimes to the earth.

Genesis 24:52  And it came to pass, that, when Abraham’s servant heard their words, he worshipped the LORD, bowing himself to the earth.

Even falling down and grabbing the feet of the person worshipped.

Matthew 28:9  And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

Sometimes they kneeled.

Psalm 95:6  O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

So, it is that there are different postures of acknowledging someone as superior. We Americans are taught to bow to no one as superior so we have a hard time acknowledging God’s power over our lives in a real, tangible way. Americans lack the awe for anything other than something like a fireworks display or a huge bomb going off. Our shallowness of culture does get in the way of our understanding of who God is and of His power over our lives. The weakness of other cultures was that for centuries they acknowledged a king, tsar, or emperor as being God’s agent on earth and were in fear and awe of him but still not seeing, because of the propaganda their government controlled them with, that it was God who controlled every heartbeat and breath and God, not their king, who could save or destroy in an instant. Only God is worthy of our awe and reverence, our worship.

Psalm 33:8  Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

Hebrews 12:28  Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

The brothers in Genesis 42:6 came to the Egyptian official, mightiest in the land under the Pharaoh himself, their brother Joseph whom they did not recognize, to plead for food to buy. They were showing their inferior position and his power over their lives. This is a beautiful image of how we should come to Christ. Let Him lift us up.

James 4:10  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

1Peter 5:6  Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: 7  Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

Moses worships the Lord and pleads for his people, acting as a mediator between God and man as a type of Christ.

Bible Study on Romans 6, verses 1 to 23, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord

 

Romans 6:1 ¶  What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2  God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 3  Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5  For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7  For he that is dead is freed from sin. 8  Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 9  Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 10  For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11  Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13  Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14  For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 15  What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. 16  Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? 17  But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. 18  Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. 19  I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. 20  For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. 21  What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 22  But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. 23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Now, Paul addresses the very carnal argument that, based on what he said previously, we ought to just sin as much as we can because that will give God more of an opportunity to show grace. In other words, our salvation becomes an excuse for sin. Don’t laugh at this because it is the subconscious argument of many Christians. A Christian teen once told me that the reason he sinned a lot was because he was a Christian, just not a very good one. This kind of argument and this kind of thinking, looking for loopholes, quenches the Holy Spirit’s voice inside each of us to do right until we are in dire straits.

 

Paul goes on very clearly to say that we are freed not only from the penalty of sin but from its very power.

 

Paul likens baptism here as a type, a picture, of Christ’s death. As we are raised up out of the water it is a type of Christ’s resurrection if we reject sin and live a new life. This is not to say that we will not sin but that we should reject it and consciously act to walk as Christ would have us walk. This shows that many so-called conversions are a sham, a sort of hedging one’s bets against the temptations of life.

 

Colossians 2:12  Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. 13 ¶  And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

 

Eternal life is a gift, a free gift based on our belief and faith. It overcomes and conquers sin’s penalty, sin’s power, and when we are face to face with God we are freed from its very presence.

Bible Study on Exodus 33, verses 12 to 23, Moses sees the glory of God

 

Exodus 33:12 ¶  And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. 13  Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people. 14  And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. 15  And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. 16  For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. 17  And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. 18  And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. 19  And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. 20  And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. 21  And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: 22  And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: 23  And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

 

Moses pleads with God to tell him who is to be Moses’ helper and heir to his ministry and to show him God’s plan. He throws in a plea to consider that the Hebrews are God’s people.

In this passage we see that a nation in the Bible is not like a modern nation-state, the likes of which only came into being in the last five hundred years. A nation is a people of like ethnicity. The word nation in Hebrew is goy, which has become a Jewish name for a non-Jew. In the New Testament the word nation is translated from ethnos from which we get ethnic. The United States of America is not a nation in the Biblical sense. It is a republic composed of many nations and apart from Native Americans living on their own territory or an Italian neighborhood in New York or Cajuns in a Louisiana bayou we are mixed and mingled in different locations.

God answers Moses’ plea that His presence will go with Moses. Moses is then, in type, like Christ, a mediator between God and the people of God. God’s presence is His angel.

 

Isaiah 63:9  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

 

Moses insists that the mark of God’s hand in the Israelites existence is His presence and God promises to go with Moses. Moses has found grace in God’s sight. Thee and thou, which along with thine, the singular you, had fallen out of usage by the time of the King James Version of the Bible except for intimate terms, like in, “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The singular you, or thou, began to be used for social inferiors and then completely died out except for religious uses and in some dialects of rural England where it has even become “tha.”

Bringing the singular you, thou, back was a great way of distinguishing when a speaker meant an individual or a group of people. As an example, who is Jesus talking to here, and when is He referring to just Peter or making a reference to all of the apostles;

Luke 22:31  And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: 32  But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

 

Moses asks God to show him God’s own glory. Jesus showed chosen disciples His glory inasmuch as they could bear it.

Mark 9:2  And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. 3  And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.

 

Here, Moses is not permitted to see God’s face and is protected from the effects of God’s glory in His appearance. God’s glory must be very powerful on an individual to look upon…

Ezekiel 3:23  Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face.

 

…so much so that people thought they were going to die when they saw the angel of His presence.

Exodus 20:18 ¶  And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. 19  And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. 20  And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. 21  And the people stood afar off, and

Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

 

Judges 6:22  And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face. 23  And the LORD said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.

 

Judges 13:20  For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. 21  But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD. 22  And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.

 

23  But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these.

 

No one has seen God the Father, who is a Spirit, as in the words invisible and incorporeal.

John 1:18  No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

 

John 4:24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

 

The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word by which all things were created, reveals Him. In a manner of speaking, He is the body of God that can be seen.

Hebrews 1:3a  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…

 

John 14:9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

 

The phrase, the Son of God, represents Christ coming in the authority of God the Father as a king’s son would come in the authority of the king as the heir of the king. The Word has to do with how He spoke the universe into existence and how He maintains or sustains it.

John1:1 ¶  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2  The same was in the beginning with God. 3  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

 

Colossians 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

 

It seems clear that when people in the Old Testament saw God, as an appearance, or an angel, they were seeing the preincarnate Christ. This was also true after the resurrection when Paul spoke with Him.

 

Acts 27:23  For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,