the apostle paul starts his letter to the believers at rome..'paul..separated unto the gospel of God, (which He had promised afore by His prophets in the holy scriptures,) concerning His Son Jesus Christ...
in this section lloyd-jones considers three things.
1. why the delay?
2. why did paul insinuate the parenthetical verse 2 about the 'prophets in the holy scriptures'?
3. what are some vital things we can learn here?
why did God allow such a long period of time to pass between His promise of a savior and His sending Jesus Christ? lloyd-jones suggests three possible reasons:
1. it was God's way of revealing the depth of sin, 'of teaching us, what sin really is, what a terrible thing it is, that it is not merely some light act of disobedience or some failure, but that it really is a profound disease off the soul of man which leads to terrible and awful consequences...the terrible thing about sin is that it blinds us to the truth of God'. consider john 5..'these men claimed to be experts on the old testament - they were the teachers, the authorities on the books of moses - and our Lord says to them, go back and read them..Moses..wrote of Me..but they could not see that'. also II corinthians 3 says that their eyes were blinded; a veil was over their hearts.
2. it was God's way of proving to men the futility of man's attempts to save himself. look at all the great civilizations which came and went. they rose and then they fell. they could not save themselves. I corinthians 1 says that the world by wisdom knew not God. romans 8.3 says, for what the law could not do, in that is was weak through the flesh..'people said, "give us a law, tell us how to live, and we will live it and put ourselves right" '..they could not do it.
3. it showed God's Lordship, absolute control and final authority. all old testament history..and all history is made up of two things: God's actions and God's permissions. there are accounts in the old testament 'of the tremendous activity of God, when He, as it were, irrupted on to the human scene and did things - the flood, the destruction of sodom and gomorrah, the crossing by israel of the red sea, israel's entering into canaan, the waters of the jordan divided and so on - the mighty acts of God. oh yes; but there were long periods when God seemed to be doing nothing and permitted all kinds of thins to happen. people said, 'where is your God?'
next, why did paul insinuate verse 2 as a parenthetical between 1 and 3? he does this again and again. he does it in 3.20..'
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1 comment:
Hey, where's the rest, Steve?
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