This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 12, 1993.

We begin our reading this morning in Paul’s letter to the Romans. We are reading at the first chapter, beginning with verse one. This is Romans chapter one, verse one. Let us give our attention to the Word of God. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, by whom we have received grace and apostleship for the obedience of the faith among all nations, for his name. Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then turning over to Romans chapter eleven. And we are reading from verse twenty-five.

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits. Blindness, in part, is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes, but as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father’s sake.

For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief, even so have these also now not believed that through your mercy they might also obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counselor? For who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto Him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever.

Amen. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”

Pray with me. Give us, Lord, strength and be pleased to give us strength with respect to your word. We might not neglect it. Lord, help us then to be filled up with your word. Encourage us, our God, so that we be not discouraged in our confrontation with your word. Truly, we hear its warnings and its threatenings, but we are also consoled in the promises and the assurance that is afforded us from your word concerning our relationship to you through Christ. May we honor your word, O God. May we receive it as that which is infallible. truly inspired by you. Father, from the certainties that are set before us in your word, may we have truly certainty about our relationship to you. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. You may not be aware of it, but there has been intense debate over the years concerning the message of the Book of Romans.

I speak out of my own experience and the conservative setting in which I was raised. I grew up in an evangelical environment. made much of the doctrine of justification by faith. Now the approach to that doctrine of justification by faith in this conservative evangelical environment was deeply personal and focused generally on selected passages in chapters one through seven. of Romans. Passages like chapter one, verse seventeen, where Paul quotes the prophet Habakkuk, setting before his readers, his hearers, those great words from the prophet, the just shall live by faith. And I was led to believe that the emphasis of that text was purely and completely individual. The focus was the individual man shall live by his faith.

Also, this was the approach to the famous text in the third chapter, the twenty-first verse. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Sure, there is an inclusiveness there, but as I was pressed with respect to the setting in which I was raised, I was to understand that in the most personal and individualistic sense. Further, famous text at the end of the sixth chapter, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. These texts and many others from those chapters in Romans were pressed home to me in the interests of a very personal and individual interpretation of my faith.

Then came the eruption of my teen years when I was introduced to Reformed theology. At that point, there was a shift, yes, in emphasis, but I must confess now, not in terms. Under the Reformed faith, My interest began to shift from chapters one through seven, to chapters eight through eleven, and specifically those verses that had to do with election and predestination, which are many in those chapters. But as I said, there was a shift in emphasis, but not in tone. So again, the tone that pervaded my consideration of even these chapters and these topics was deeply personal and individual.

In the balance was always the issue of my own election, my own predestination. Now, if your experience has been somewhat similar to my own, you know that when that reform faith hits you, yes, There were the engaging aspect with respect to the doctrine set before you, but at the same time there were the quandaries were raised in your mind. Am I truly elect? Am I one of those predestined? Something of a crisis of faith followed.

Now, of course, personal justification and our own individual election and predestination are doctrines and realities of the greatest weight which we cannot in any sense minimal. And they do can they do command our attention as we consider the official to the Romans. The problem was however for me that these interests the personal and individual interests were allowed to eclipse the wider concerns of the Apostle Paul in this particular letter. Not that we would dismiss these matters in any regard, nor minimize their importance. But as that tone, that personal and individual tone, persisted, there was that tendency to allow that tone and my approach to these specific doctrines to eclipse the wider concerns of the Apostle in this particular letter. So much was the personal and the individual made the focus that I wasn’t able to see Paul’s more comprehensive, far-reaching intention. The scope of Romans is grand. The scope of Paul’s letter to the Romans is grand, and I mean that in the most sublime sense of that word.

It is not without reason in the providence of God, then, that it appears first among Paul’s biblical epistles. since it serves as something of a charter. It serves as something of a charter for the Christian enterprise in the world to the coming again of our Savior. Now, some would limit the scope of this charter by restricting it to the issue of missions, as if by it all the Apostle intended was a master plan for world missions. But Paul’s interest goes beyond that, beyond even the glorious matter of world missions. His intent, rather, is to set before you the full purpose of God in its widest sense. Here is how, then, we might understand that purpose as it is set before us in this epistle.

I take my cue from the thirty-second verse of that eleventh chapter, that God might show mercy to all, that is, to Gentiles, but also to Jews. through the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection to the end, that the nations and also all Israel, chapter 11, verse 26, might be brought to that obedience of faith. Remember that phrase, the obedience of faith. struck for you in the fifth verse of the first chapter, but also struck again for you in the twenty-sixth verse of the sixteenth chapter. To the end that the nations and also all Israel might be brought to that obedience of faith in Christ Jesus. for the purpose of having God as their only true inheritance. Chapter eight verse seventeen to the glory of God of whom it can be said from him and through him and to him to him or all things to whom be the glory forever and ever. Verse thirty six of chapter eleven.

Then. is a setting before us. What we have here in the Epistle to the Romans is a setting before us of God’s purpose in its widest sense and its most comprehensive sense. That God might show mercy to all, that is, to Gentiles but also to Jews, to the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection, to the end that the nations and also all Israel might be brought to the obedience of faith in Christ Jesus, for the purpose of having God as their only true inheritance, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Not that my personal justification, not that my personal and individual election and predestination, not that world missions are lost from view in any sense, but rather now all of these matters are placed against the background of the great vista of God’s great redemptive program and plan. a plan that just doesn’t concern me. All those. Now immediately we ought to be able to see the difference.

Between this approach to the message of Romans. and that which would see Romans as essentially a tract about personal salvation and security. First of all, this wider sense of things sets before us, unequivocally, the glory of God. As the chief concern, this is set before us most clearly as the supreme interest of the apostle.

On the other view, the view that tends to see Romans as a tract about personal salvation and security, there is the danger that these matters that pertain to me individually will intrude upon this greater matter and issue. and the glory of God itself be obscured.

Me, rather than God. My problems, rather than God’s will. My circumstance, rather than His great redemptive plan and program. But secondly, this approach which we set out to Romans also sets before us the central events of salvation history. In a most clear fashion, those central events being the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and these then maintain their rightful place On the other view, it is my individual conversion and my own personal experience that are likely to rival, if not surpass, the central matters of God’s redemptive work as being of the greatest importance.

I am reminded of a rather severe argument that erupted in the Presbytery of Ohio a few years ago. for licensure, thought tenaciously on the floor and in committee for his view, that Romans 1.17, when it says, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, must mean, can only mean, a personal, internal revelation in the experience of conversion and justification. Now, I don’t know whether you caught that. This candidate for licensure fought tenaciously for his view that Romans 117, when it says, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, can only mean, must mean, a personal, internal revelation in the experience of conversion and justification. The Presbytery rejected that position, countering to its credit that these words must first of all refer to the objective revelation of God’s righteousness in the death and resurrection of Christ, historical events that took place nearly two thousand years ago. And as I have said many times from this pulpit, as important as my own personal conversion is, it is not my story. or the story about what has happened to me that defines the gospel.

It is rather the story of Jesus Christ and what has happened to Him. Furthermore, in this regard, we are forced, when we give God’s grand purpose that comes to light in His saving acts its due, to appropriate, or to appreciate rather, our justification and salvation in connection with what has transpired specifically in and to Christ.

Here we must not miss Paul’s intention in Romans 1 verse 4. He describes in this verse a justification to Jesus. who was declared with power to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead. We of a Reformed faith, we of an honest Protestantism, have always insisted upon the declaratory nature of justification.

Jesus, for our sake, has undergone a justification. He has been justified himself. having given himself up unto condemnation in the cross, that he might then be justified in the resurrection. The resurrection is God’s act of declaration with regard to him. It is a justification for Christ himself.

Our experience of justification, then, is found in Christ’s experience of justification. It is not alongside of Christ. justification. It is in Christ’s justification. And here we are brought to the deeper meaning of that famous verse Romans four twenty five. He was delivered up for our sins. He was raised for our justification. The meaning of that being played out for us more fully in Romans six.

Paul’s point in Romans six verse six where he says, our old man is crucified with Christ, is not that our conversion is like Christ’s crucifixion. Rather, his meaning is that our conversion is a participation in Christ’s crucifixion. Furthermore, when Paul tells us in Romans 6, verse 11, that we are alive to God in Christ Jesus, he means that we have now come to participate in Christ’s resurrection. Not simply that we have been renovated, not even that we have been renewed in our conversion, but we have actually become participants in the resurrection of Christ.

We then are justified by faith. because by faith we have been made participants in Christ’s justification, which has taken place in his resurrection. That is what faith does. It binds you to Christ, so that what has taken place to him takes place to you, and in you, and for you. So then, God’s glory and the magnification of the importance of the gospel events, these things set out for us more clearly in this grander approach to the theme and message of Romans.

This approach that sees Romans as Paul’s charter for God’s grand, redemptive, historical plan better grasps the corporate and church-centered character of Paul’s message. On the other view, the one that so emphasizes the personal and the individual, the corporate and the church-centered character of Paul’s message never comes to its own. We are not in a position even to appreciate God’s corporate and ecclesiastical design. But now you will note, as you look at things in terms of the wider considerations of the that the corporate and church interest of the apostle permeate Romans in its entirety, from the opening address to saints at Rome, members of the Church of Rome, to his zeal for all the churches of the Gentiles, he making mention of that in chapter sixteen, verse four, and in the following verse, making mention of the church that meets specifically in the home of Priscilla and Aquila.

But this then brought to the foreground, we are able to understand more perfectly that when Paul speaks of justification, when he speaks of election, when he speaks of predestination, he doesn’t have anything else in view but the church. Our justification is not a reality apart from the church, and neither is our election and our predestination. setting before you the famous verse from Romans 8. For we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. That is a statement about the Church. When he goes on to speak about us not being able to be separated from the love of God or from the love of Christ, Those considerations arise in connection with our relationship to the Church, our identity as the people of God.

But even more to the point, as Romans would itself be completed Life in the Church is not brought specifically into view in chapters 12 through 16. We started with 1 through 7, we moved on from 8 to 11, and now we have 12 through 16. But now, as we move on to these chapters, we’re able to understand how closely bound these chapters are to the scheme of Romans in its entirety, to the overall thought that is developed throughout. No, these chapters at the end are no tack-on. They are not an appendix, but integral and essential to the epistle’s overall message.

They tell us about the society, the society of Gentiles and Jews that finds its life in Christ as his body. Chapter 12, verse 5. This body is blessed by gifts of His grace. Those in it are pledged to one another. They are gracious to outsiders. That is what you hear as you move through that twelfth chapter. They are patient and submissive to government, chapter thirteen. Concluding chapter thirteen, they abstain from fleshly indulgence. This is the life of those who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ. And within the assembly, they forbear with the weak,” chapter 14.

But here, most specifically, finally, and fourthly, is the deeper range of that phrase that I pointed out to you earlier. The phrase, the obedience to faith, that stands so centrally to Paul’s message mentioned at the beginning, chapter one, verse five, mentioned again at the conclusion, chapter sixteen, verse twenty six.

On the personal and individual reading of Romans, the obedience is liable to become separated from the faith. The phrase is the obedience of faith. that on that personal and individual interpretation of Romans, the obedience is liable to be separated from the faith. Even the title of that grand old hymn, Trust and Obey, is a little too artificial for Paul. As are those approaches to Paul’s letter to the Romans that keep chapters twelve through sixteen too far removed from the letter’s chief interest. No, not trust and obey, but the obedience of trust is Paul’s approach.

And such obedience of faith. as is plainly expounded in chapters 12 through 16. That which comes to expression in the body, in the Church, and from the Church. Such obedience of faith being specifically and pointedly worked out within the Church as it is found to be in Christ Jesus who himself cannot be separated any more from his church than he can from his body. Yes, there is a more comprehensive, a grander, way in which to read Paul’s letter to the Romans, and that which I had embraced when I was younger in the faith, and for the benefit of our own faith, that we might indeed be those who are concerned for the obedience of faith, as that is expressed within the fellowship of Christ’s Church.

May we give the Apostle our full attention. Our Father in heaven, we would learn from you by your word. We would not be ignorant of those things that you would put before us through your servant, the apostle. In fact, Lord, we would come to embrace that message in its full range, in its depth and in its richness. Lord, we would see your grand purpose and intention, your glory above all else.

The corporate nature of our identity carries us beyond even our individual concerns. We are in fact members of the body of Christ. to which the Apostle drives, and to which, Lord, your purpose and plan would bring us. We ask, our God, that we would not then minimize your Church, that we would not think less of it than we ought. And by doing that, our Father, by thinking of it less than we ought, so dishonor you. and particularly your son, whose body the Church is. Instead, Father, give us hearts that are filled with peace. Heal for your glory. Heal for the Gospel. Heal for the Church. Heal for obedience. The obedience of faith, by which we are justified. for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.