The next point that we want to look at is the adversies, point number three, who does Paul write to, as you look at the historical situation that I've just described a little bit, and particularly as you look at the greeting section in Romans 16, it is quite overwhelming. Who Paul knows what Paul knows about them, and so that simply corroborates by statement before that there is a historical connection and setting for writing to the Romans. It is perhaps surprising to you, now that I've mentioned that the Aquila and Priscilla were thrown out of Roman 52, that the second group of adversies in Romans is Aquila and Priscilla. 57 AD, I can't go into all the historical reconstruction of their whereabouts, they seem to be moving about quite a bit, and it's probably special pleading to say that there were another couple with that same name and they were there. It is quite likely that there was a return to Rome of Jews after this expulsion, and that at the year 57 a good number had returned, if for no other reason, and then to continue church work there. Aquila and Priscilla would be among them. As I've just mentioned, there's a lot of coming and going, so the reach for the Gospel in Rome would be great in terms of troops, in terms of business, in terms of discourse, and my general reading of Romans is not, as you may be impressed by some particular references in Romans, that it is primarily a Gentile recipient group, that the church in Rome is primarily predominantly Gentile. I see that Paul is really wrestling with the unity of the church, and as he wrestles with that he brings addresses the Jews and the Gentiles at the same point. If you look at the outline of the way Paul argues in Romans, I believe it is very much a addressing both groups, even though there may be a minority of Jews and a majority of Gentile Christians there, I'm not wrestling with that. But when you look at the composition of the church, and you see the history of initial persecution of Jews, and now also of Christian Jews, and very soon of Gentile Christians, 64, that whole milieu, you get a feel for a Jewish Christian church composition, probably mostly from the lower classes, some educated, some freed men, it would require an analysis of the names and the references in Romans 16 to get closer to that. So while we cannot say a whole lot about the composition of the church, I think it is safe for us to say Paul is addressing a Jewish Christian recipient group, and he very much wants them to be unified and together, and to be a demonstration of the power of God. So let's look a little bit at the outline and then also the flow of thought. The outline is very simple, and obviously for your exam, you will need to give a caption for each chapter of Romans. So the outline that I'm giving you will not be sufficient, but this gives you a rough integration, a rough overview of what is Paul really going after, and then in the flow of thought argumentation, I'll justify that a little more. So please remember that in the exams you will give a caption or a characterization for each chapter. You had a question. No, I would say it's really a hard thing in terms of numbers. So my conclusion is the concern is for both groups. It's too interwoven, there's too much reference to this and that group, and so the adversies are both groups. Probably from the expulsion of many Jews and Jewish Christians, particularly in Romans 52, you could say that the Jewish contingency is a minority actually at 57. But I don't think that's very significant in terms of the outline of Romans. This is a very simple outline, but it's something that you can hold on to to begin to understand its structure. Some of you certainly would know that already. It's Romans 1 to 15. As usual, there's a certain format of epistolary form that Paul uses. But I'm convinced more and more that the format of epistolary introduction is not just a formality. Paul doesn't just say dear James and doesn't think at all of what dear means. There is more content. There's some embellishment. There's some particular crafting of words that gives the clear indication that Paul means, what he says, to the recipients in Rome. Then I believe is the thesis statement of the entire book of Romans in 116 and 117. And as you look at that, the way to justify a thesis statement is that the rest of the argument of Romans can be subsumed in one way or another organically with that theme. And 116 says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. First for the Jews, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed or the righteousness from God is revealed. A righteousness that is by faith from first to last or from faith to faith. Faith from first to last just as it is written, the righteous will live or shall live by faith out of faith. So test that yourself. Is that a thesis statement? Does this really give you the heading, the caption for the entire rest of what follows? And it is perhaps instructive to think that Paul says to the Jew first and then to the Gentiles. And what does he do in the next section? Does he address the Jews first and then the Gentiles? Yes, no. Yes, but how does he bring all of mankind under the heading of 320 and 321? What is his argument? How does he begin? Who does he talk first to? And then Gentiles. He begins with the Gentiles. And I believe that is not a mechanical sense. He begins with that group that most clearly fails the purposes of God. And perhaps even to get the Jews to listen to him. Because at this point they would say, boy, surely you're right. But you're saying about these Gentiles? Wow. Boy, are they failing God's ways? But we, we're pretty together. So Paul gets the Jews to agree and then he steps up and says, all have sinned and failed to reach the glory of God. So there's this climactic statement of building up to that point where the Jews are included as well in this first major section. So I've already said it, but we will look at them just a little bit. Too faith? No. I think it's the former, the maturing aspect. It is a difficult formulation, but it is echoed by the quotation from Habakkuk and there in Habakkuk it says, the righteous shall live out of faith from faith. And we will see how Paul distinguishes living out of faith from living out of works or by works, living by faith. So it's clearly that there is a statement of process here of what does it mean if you live by faith rather than by works and we'll get into that. And then he says, and it is towards faith. It's starting there and it's ending there. So the NIV translation is not bad to convey that from first to last. All life is marked and characterized by faith. And that's the real problem. In many churches you start with faith and you end with performance. Or you start with faith and you end with please yourself. That's the problem that we've already encountered with Galatians. There is an element of human nature that really resists the consistency of living and growing and maturing by faith alone. There is somewhere where the back door of doing it yourself, the stoic, self-made man and self-made woman comes back in and shows itself. So that's what it is, I believe, from faith to faith. And the NIV rendersness by faith from first to last. So let's get an overview and then we're going to go into some details here. Hopefully. 118 then moves to 521 and gives the righteousness as justification. This is the first major unit besides the thesis after the thesis statement. Righteousness as justification. And I need to say a lot more about that question of what is righteousness, particularly what is the righteousness of God. I hope we will get there. 118 to 521. And then 6 to 8, chapter 6 to 8, the second major section is righteousness as sanctification. And then comes this section that seems to be really breaking the flow of thought. If you broke off here in chapter 8 and moved on with chapter 12, you may not notice anything missing. So the chapters 9 to 11 are in some ways a major question. Why does Paul deal with Israel and the lot of Israel? And I've already mentioned to you that I do think it follows in the flow of thought in this sense. That Paul has dealt with the fact that all come under the judgment of God. And there is only one form of justification and one form of sanctification, but what about the people of Israel? So it's a particular concern about the continuity of God's faithfulness that is being brought in here. Yes, it is in excursions in some ways, but it does apply in there even references within this section. Chapter 10 and 11, especially that refer back to the initial argument of Romans. So don't think that is too much of an artificial or a non-sequitur, something that does not follow clearly in the flow of argument. And then certainly there's the, so that's Israel, major section from 12 to 15, 13, at least, 15, 13. And this is what we could call the Hortatory section. Now those of you who love gardening, it has nothing to do with gardening. Horticultural would be the word, I think. Hortatory is the admonition, the encouragement for conduct. And that's where many people go wrong. Either they don't go to that point, that Paul leads up to, or they really forget what Paul has said in chapters 1-8 as they read 9-11, and then they start again in chapter 12 and say, oh, by the way, there are some things that we need to straighten up about, and we need to clarify our life because we do need to leave decent lives before God. And they get it completely wrong. Because you know, the word here in the English translation is very nice. It says in chapter 12 verse 1, therefore. Now that's just a week in the Greek text, second position, in the syntax in the Greek text in 12-1, but it's all the more clear that when you read through this section, especially that first verse, and the second verse, that there is a point of continuation from everything that has been said to this point. So we need to go back to that as we go into the flow of thought. Following this auditory section, this admonition section of conduct and life, Paul concludes with remarks and greetings from 15-14 to the end. I know this is a very rough and simple outline, but that gives you the rough feel for what is happening. It becomes more interesting when you give account to how Paul builds his argument, and that's what we're going to do right now. The flow of thought, it is lecture 23. We're moving into lecture 23, by the way, just in case you have not noticed it yet, flow of thought. This is important for you to see how Paul builds his argument. And I'm told that in some groups of law students, Romans has been used as an example for building a case carefully and systematically. Yes, concluding remarks and greetings in 15-14 to the end, we should become more specific, but I won't at this point. We will begin with the theme in 16 and 17, what Paul is outlining here. We should spend a lot of time here on this, and I hope to be able to get at least to the phrase righteousness from God. But it is clear that Paul is speaking about something that has been revealed. It is not something that he has come up with or that has been growing out of the tradition of men that is a natural consequence of reflection. It is something that has come from the outside to Paul. It is salvation for everyone who believes. We would need to reflect on the meaning of salvation. Colossians gives a definition of being removed from the dominion of Satan and darkness. And being transplanted into the kingdom of his beloved son. There is something major going on when you speak about salvation. The saving of the people of Israel from slavery is a wonderful illustration and description of what is happening here when you speak about salvation. We have to be careful when we speak about these terms and say, have you been saved? Have you gotten yourself Jesus? That it seems to be minimized to a sense of have you gotten your new friend Jesus on your side? He can fulfill your wishes and he is going to be really a good friend to you, et cetera, et cetera. It is belittling and it is making domesticated the salvation. You need to understand what is at stake and how do we know what is at stake unless we read Romans? For one. And so we really learn of what salvation is all about as we look at the flow of thought of Romans. The gospel, the righteousness from God is revealed, righteousness is by faith from first to last. We will see that there is no salvation by works and we will also analyze of what that means. So this theme statement is being illustrated now and described as we look at the main body that moves from 118 all the way through 1513. What is happening in the first major section, which is here a first major part as the righteousness as justification? What is happening here is the chapters 1 through 320. 1, 15 through 320. First major subsection to this 1.1 here and excuse me, 118, sorry, after the thesis statement. And it is quite significant that you will not understand and know the gospel of justification and of sanctification if you do not accept the truth of this first section. Many people do not read this section of the gospel because it does not seem like good news, it seems like really bad news, offensive news, cutting news. And so they want to hear about justification, they want to hear about sanctification, they want to hear about how God gives us power to live victorious lives. You can't have the gospel without chapter 1 through 320. Because the gospel exposes man's condition and what Paul does in preaching the gospel to the Gentiles and to the Jews is to confront them with their true situation. And I believe that the true situation and the true condition of man is not known outside of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul, that is Saul, before he knew the gospel, did not know the severity of his condition. Therefore he can say, according to the law amemtos, without blame. I am okay, I am following the law, I am even persecuting those who question the sovereignty and uniqueness of Yahweh. If you look in Palestinian Judaism, if you look around in the sources and search for an analysis of the severity of human condition, you will mostly find that people do wrong things and they need to make them right again. Casuistic understanding of human wrongdoing. Very much commensurate with stoicism actually. It's a light understanding that man just messes up, we're feeble, we just can't quite get our act together, we need a little help, we need a little help from the law, we need a little help from a friend, we need a little help from Jesus and then we'll be alright. That's not the gospel. The gospel begins with a severe indictment of the human condition and people will resist that part of the gospel, it is not attractive. It does not fit into the progressive understanding of improvement, of bettering, of achievement, and it is amazing to me that even in nations that have seen great horror such as Germany, that there is no sense of the severity of the human condition. Pascal got it right in understanding the misery of human condition as one of the big challenges of human philosophy. Paul deals with that misery very squarely and systematically exposes that wrongness, the significance and the depth of that fallenness of man in Romans 1 to 320. The way he goes about it is very severe, that namely the judgment of God has been poured out, has been made known, is visible in the Corinthian church in which he sits at this point when he writes to the Romans. What does he see among the Corinthians although they are being called out of this horrible scenario? It is this, and Calbard in his commentary in Romans has hit it right on the head. Judgment of God in Romans 1, 18 following. It is not that God hits you over the head for doing something wrong. The judgment of God is that he lets you succeed in your evil desires. You succeed unhindered. He has removed his hand of limiting, his hand of restraining, his hand of cautioning, his hand of calling, and he lets mankind do. He hands them over. In their twisted mind they have exchanged the worship of God and the glorification of God who has made them for elevating something else. Man is a perennial worshipper. He does not worship God, he will worship something that God has created. And in so twisting he misuses the rest of creation. And so he is falling into homosexuality and lesbian conduct. He is mixing up the entire godly structure and goodness of God's creation in an absolute horrible way and defaces everything including himself. That is the judgment of God that has fallen mankind and owed to him who is not disciplined by God. It is the love of God that he disciplines his church and that he challenges his people to repent, to turn, to soften, to his call and to turn towards the gospel. And turning towards the gospel means the concession that you are not capable to live before God in any shape of form in a reconciled way, in an acceptable way. Before him and before others, it is a concession of absolute capitulation. Even though you may be highly educated, you may be highly successful, you may have a very good marriage or you may have very good relationships with people. You may be very acceptable in your community. God says you are in serious trouble. The revelation of the gospel speaks about the high standard of God that you cannot reach. So you are only good in your own eyes as long as you do not see the god-standard. As soon as you see god-standard, you fall to the ground and say, woe is me. Before the holy god, I cannot stand. My words dissipate into smoke. My deeds are completely thrown out of court. My entire being is consumed in the x-ray exposure of God's clarity and radiance and that's exactly what Paul experienced on the way to Damascus. Everything that he could present to God as a child of Abraham, tribe of Benjamin, accomplished, trained under Gamaliel, everything that he has done, including the persecuting of those who do not worship the living God evaporates to nothing. That's gospel and that's very, very, very offensive gospel. But you will not get the great grace of justification and of sanctification in chapters 321 following, including the Hortatory section of chapter 121 following. If you do not get that down, clearly. If you cannot rest before that and say, I accept this. So the ladder down, the depreciation, the steps down in human existence are only an expression of God's judgment. So if you see a society that is handed over to its own devices, that does not know any more right from wrong, that does not know what is true and what is not true in the court, has been handed over in a great degree in their greater warning signs of not being cautioned by God and the wickedness of men says, see, there's no God. Prove. We can please ourselves, we can do all kinds of things, we can twist this and do this, please ourselves and God, where is he? Highly, highly, highly serious. And there into that falls the gospel that Paul says, Jewish brethren, you agree with me what I say about the Gentiles in their condition because they systematically suppress everything they could know including their conscience. You know, conscience is a word in Greek and in English that means consky or knowing alongside with. It's a voice that knows alongside with you that says wrong, don't do that. Problem. It's something created in man that really cautions even that together with God's handy work in creation is systematically suppressed. So you cannot, as Roman Catholics may still hold to some of them at least, you cannot be guided towards God by listening to your conscience as little as you can be guided to God by looking at the beauty of creation because there is a systematic suppression principle in you. And even though some people would say, I appreciate nature, I respect nature. I think there must be some kind of a wonderful being behind this. I can deny that. That's still not an acknowledgement of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You will not know the God of Abraham, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the father of Jesus Christ, unless he speaks to you, unless he reveals himself through his word. That's when we see we have utterly failed and we have abused those things that speak against us Gentiles, namely creation and conscience. And then Paul moves on and steps up this fifth year into tuber drive towards the Jews and says, you have been given so much. You know the revelation of God, you know his word, you enjoy the temple, the presence of God's self-revelation. And yet you as well have completely failed. And you know Paul could add here in Romans 3, 20, just a little footnote, by the way, if anybody doubts this, I've been there for the pins. Self-description for the pins 2 and 3. So you see that you've got to read slowly chapters 1 through 3. If you skip over that and try to get into the victorious living in chapter 8, you are kidding yourself. Because if you do not get the absolute hopelessness of your situation and believe that as a revelation of the gospel truth to your life, you don't have a starting point. You will end up with what Dietrich von Heffer called cheat grace. Go to the dispenser and get yourself a little grace from Jesus. And he'll improve your life a little bit. Just you know, patch it onto whatever wound you have. There's a serious part of God's self-revelation. That's part of the gospel. That is part of the basis from which Paul then moves in the following chapters, namely that we all have lost our way. And the justification that now moves on from chapter 3, 21 to 5, 21, is that God has revealed His righteousness to us and that we are called to a different mode of life altogether which is defined as living by faith. In chapter 3, Paul speaks about the atonement of Christ and His universal significance. He speaks about Abraham as the father of the faithful in chapter 4, 1 to 25. And he speaks about grace in 5, 12 to 21. You will not get the meaning of grace unless you see the horror of your own condition before God. And it has been a process in my life. So I'm not saying, you know, we arrive at this point. I believe it is the work of Scripture and the illumination of the Holy Spirit that convicts us of the severity of our condition and increases the value of God's favor towards us, unmerited utterly, even more unmerited favor of God towards us, to provide a way out. Now, I told you that I was an Austrian, talked with one of the Lufthansa pilots of these jumbo jets, a very accomplished man, and he was very open to the gospel. But he did say, you know, God got us into this trouble so he might as well get us out of it. You know, it seems a little simplistic, you know, you just need to make everybody bad, tear everything down, and then obviously they will be very thankful to receive something while that was a horrible caricature of what is actually going on because while man has no free will to choose God at this point. Adam had utterly free will to follow the ways of God or reject or deny them. There is a human responsibility, and obviously you can struggle and I can struggle with the challenge that by Adam's decision, we are part of that fallen situation in chapter 5 in Romans deals partially with Adam's and some exegies actually deny. That original sin is in you in chapter 5, what we would call original sin, the fact that Adam's fall affects us as a human race. And I know that these aspects that I am emphasizing here, chapters 1 to 3, Romans 5, the fallen condition and the original sin are some of the most offensive aspects of the gospel. But I ask you, who is diagnosis do you want to believe? Do you want to believe your own diagnosis or the diagnosis of your friend or the diagnosis of the chief surgeon about your condition? If your chief surgeon says that you are in serious health problems, will you still say I don't care, I believe what I say or I believe what my friend says? You see Paul is presenting the revelation of the gospel, the revelation of the truth about us and the means to get out of that situation. And so I would suggest to you and speak to myself, we better follow the presentation about our condition from the position of God, from the one who has made us, from the one who knows us, and he will not treat us as cheaply as to get us into trouble and then make us really dependent and crawl in our knees back to him and say thank you for bringing us. God has made man as a free moral human being, Adam, and that choice, that ability was played out and lost so that man became a dependent being, a worshiper of everything but God, that tragedy described in Romans 1 is the tragedy of human history. And so praise God that he provides despite the fact that we deserve judgment, that we deserve eternal punishment, a way to be reconciled with him totally on the basis of his grace and his volition. But I know that for some of you and I'm sure and you need to be honest about that, this sounds a little offensive, this just borders on being pushed around and you need to deal with that when you feel that, face the gospel because those are the corner points, the major stakes of the gospel and I'm repeating myself, I know you will not get justification and sanctification right. You will not get the gift and the magnitude of those right and you will more likely fall into self-generated stoic, let's do goodness religion in chapter 12 to 15, if you do not understand your condition before God. And that's so serious and so important because there is the other side that Pascal spoke about, the glory, la gloire, we have something in us that is so beautiful, that is so fragrant, they're so special. And so we sense that still, there's something good, something, some calling, somewhere that says we are so beautifully, carefully made, just if you reflect of how many millions of conditions have to be met in this universe for you to sit here. It's overwhelming how the entire universe has to function just right, in terms of motion and temperature and chemical structure etc. etc. There are millions of things where absolutely oblivious about, particularly myself, for things to work just right for us just to exist. So the gift is enormously great and yet we will not be able to return to that glory unless we go through that process of salvation. And so for Paul, this form of argumentation is fundamental, foundational in chapter 5 in particular and then we move in chapter 6 to 8 to the righteousness as sanctification. While we have a final and immovable standing before God as justified forensically or legally justified people before God on the basis of his work, not on the basis of what we bring to the equation, there is something else that needs to begin to grow and that is a process of becoming renewed. Now a lot can be said on this because is it really that our old self needs to be improved and shaped up or is it rather that what Paul speaks about in chapter 6 to 8 is that that new life which has begun now by being regenerated, being justified, being put right in terms of our relationship with God needs to grow. So that the new life needs to grow not that our sucks, our flesh needs to be improved. Too often I think we are involved in the process of improving our flesh by stoic means, by epicurean means, by various means of chastisement and conducting ourselves or reasoning and saying don't do that foolish thing, it's going to mess up your career etc. Rather than to realize that our old self that is under judgment that has brought Christ to the cross can only be overcome by letting it die. So Paul's antithesis of living according to the flesh rather than according to the spirit, very strong presentation in chapter 7 and then a clear outlook in chapter 8 by overcoming the deeds of this flesh by yielding to the spirit of God is really not a betterment of our old nature. It needs to be starved out, needs to be left for that which is new which is growing in our lives according to the spirit. So there what God calls you to yield to His discipline, to yield to His ways, to yield to His call where He warms your heart with regard to Scripture and with regard to service, lean into that. And realize that there is a major growth that is necessary. Paul then moves in chapter 9 to 11 into the question of Israel, the concern for Israel and it is quite interesting that Paul does not say and I believe that is at least a justifiable interpretation. He is not saying that God is going to be faithful to all of Israel and I seem to be contradicting Scripture here and I not. I think the argument in chapter 9 following is election as selection. The irrelevant theme is so important in chapter 9 Paul establishes the fact that the children of promise are the people of God. Not naturally the descendants of Abraham. He then uses the image of the potter and that was a very well-known image of the potter and the sovereignty of the potter over the clay. And if we wanted to modernize that image we would be saying the designer of an automobile. Have you ever seen the automobile saying I am not going to function according to the design. I am going to fly. I am not going to move on the road. I just disagree with my designer. And that is really a caricature of how we live. We deviate and digress from the purpose of our designer and the very fundamental description is we are created for communion with God. We are not created for ourselves. So this entire image of the potter is very significant here. Then Paul deals with Israel's rejection of God's righteousness. So here is a point of application that what he has said in chapter 2 and 3 does not get received with open arms especially by the Jewish audience. You see here why there is such a resistance to the gospel. It is not tickling your ears. You see part of the gospel is really an exposure of your condition and it is particularly painful for the Jewish person that has received the law and is pursuing the law and is pursuing God's ways. So he or she thinks and has to admit to failing the glory of God, sinning against God and having to receive the righteousness that comes from God rather than the righteousness that comes from self. And so it is a great drama that Israel rejects and yet Paul understands that there is a blessing in disguise that this resistance to the gospel of the Jewish people generally speaking is actually a blessing to those who can hear namely the Gentiles so that there is a outworking of God's will even in the dilemma of Israel's rejection. And then in chapter 11 Paul speaks about the hope that is set out for Jewish people and I think 11, chapter 11, 1 to 10 is very significant for me in my own understanding of this very difficult section obviously. And that is this in 11, 4 Paul speaks about this and what was God's answer to him, 11, 4. I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to bail. Reserved is a key word here. I have reserved for myself. And then in chapter 11, 5, so too at the present time there is arrests, a remnant chosen by grace. I think that is a very important point here in this juncture of Paul dealing with the faithfulness of God to his covenant people that there is not a guarantee but there is a faithfulness of God. There is a faithfulness to the remnant and that is concluded, that whole theme in verse 23 of chapter 11 where it says, and if they do not persist in unbelieve that is the Jewish people, they will be grafted in for God is able to graft them in again. Here is the theme of re-engrafting and that is offensive to a Jew, to think that he is broken off and grafted back in. Let's see the faithfulness of God to his covenant people is not, that he simply lets them claim allegiance and participation in the people of God just because they are children of Abraham. They do have to go through the gate of justification by Christ's atonement, that has to be the point of entry, that has to be the point of God's revelation that wherever they are, they have to admit that they are in dire need of God's forgiveness. Abraham anticipated this day, David looked for this day and every Jewish person that sees the goodness of God must come to this point and thus be re-engraffed through the gate of Christ. There are not two ways of salvation, there is not a way of being part of the people of Israel and then a way of coming to faith. There is only one way, but you know God is faithful to his covenant people by leading them in that way. Now obviously you will quote 1126 to me and say well, but it says here and so all Israel will be saved and there are various references to this all even further down the road here in this chapter. I think in the total context of chapters 9-11 you will see that there is a reference to Remnant. It is not a numeric totality that is referred to here and we have certainly Jewish sources that support the fact that all does not need necessarily have to mean every single one. There is a sense that God sees the people of Israel and keeps its faithfulness to it, but in particular it is Remnant. So it's a very difficult chapter, a section, chapters 9-11, but the point is given that God will be faithful even at the point right now where many Jewish people as Paul writes resist Romans 1-3, particularly 2-3. And as many Jewish people resist Romans 5 and say that belongs to the Gentiles they have missed the mark we have not. And so this is the great challenge for evangelism and Paul sees that Gentiles have a great responsibility to live a godly life to draw the Jewish people to the point of salvation. And that perhaps is the transition for chapters 12-15. I have mentioned that chapter 12 begins with therefore in the English translation and it is following from the Greek text and if you don't believe the therefore connection, read what it says, I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy. Now my father always said firmly present it is half proven so I'll do that here and if I have to raise my voice it's even more proven. Maybe I don't have to do that in view of God's mercy. This is a summary of everything that he has said thus far, including the faithfulness to the Remnant of Israel in chapters 9-11. In view of that mercy. In view of God not abandoning you in judgment. In view of unmerited utterly unmerited grace to bring you back into relationship, reconcile relationship with him and to give you a tool of overcoming the power of sin by sowing to the spirit, by reading scripture, by prayer. And to grow and see that new life grown your life in view of that mercy do not give your body to sexual immorality. I'm narrowing the scope a little bit, offer your bodies as living sacrifices wholly and pleasing to God which is your spiritual worship. What I've just said is one application, perhaps one significant application here, it has a very real, very concrete, very definite consequence that you know that you cannot read on in this chapter if you read it as instructions of how to, as instructions of how you need to behave. You've got to go back to verse 1 every time you read a verse from here on and say in view of God's mercy this is what needs to happen. And it is my basic understanding of the instructions of God including these instructions in chapter 12-15 that these are statements of intent of God with your life. And if you read it that way you say what is God planning with me that my body would be a living sacrifice, that my body would be wholly pleasing to God, that my mind would no longer conform to the patterns of this world including stoicism and epicureanism to the pattern of do it yourself to the pattern of I resist the revelation of the gospel. But be transformed by the renewing of my mind then I will be able to test and approve what God's will is, I will know what is good and pleasing and perfect. Wow, these are intentions of God with my life, now that's not a checkout, that's not a Calvinistic sit back in your rocking chair and say well, if God wants me to be godly he'll drop it down from the sky and I'll rock in my rocking chair until that comes. No, pursue, there is an activity but it's not an activity that says okay, God has then met you and 80% of the road you better crank out the remaining 20%. You know, he's done so much, I mean come on, no, it is from faith onto faith, it continues the sense of I am a hopelessly lost person, I pursue my own good, I pursue my own interests. I cannot now suddenly jump out of that and say well I've heard the gospel now I'm going to straighten out. No, I remain in that needy and dependent place right now, I know God has justified me on the base of his deeds in Christ, I know that he has given me his word and the spirit of God to grow. And unless he provides for me everything I need I will not grow, but here is an instruction of what he intends to do. So now I take the first step, I move forward, a sheep does not wonder which step to take and where to go, it starts and it trusts in the leading of its pastor, of its shepherd. So I take a step, I start moving, I take steps, I fall, I see how weak I am, I understand the forgiveness of Christ and his mercy, I come back to the point of trust in him and his provisions rather than saying for heaven's sake, I think I have more success if I take things in my own hand as a fallacy. So I practice dependency upon God in my daily life, I read these instructions over and over these wonderful descriptions here. For instance, love must be sincere, hate what is evil, cling to what is good, be devoted to one another and brotherly love, honor one another above yourselves, never be lacking in zeal, zeal excuse me. But keep your spiritual further, further serving the Lord, be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer, share with God's people who are in need, practice hospitality, those are goals of God with my life. These are the fruits of what God will produce in my life, I will pray towards it, I will take steps towards it, but I will take great care not to lapse into self-generated good doing, self-generated, self-generated activity or activism. I have to be very careful, Paul has given me the connection to the gospel here, so I must maintain and keep that connection, but I must read on, I must see that this is the purpose for salvation, because reconciliation with God has practical ramifications. Somewhere John says, you cannot claim to love God and hate your brother, that's very uncomfortable, because I do it, maybe not outspokenly, I simply say, leave me alone, you're uncomfortable, get out of my sight, but that is not commensurate with God's character. And so I need to grow, I need to develop into that fruit bearing, into those works, as Ephesians says, 210, which God has prepared beforehand, to that goal, to that aim, I am saved, to that aim, I am reconciled with God, for that purpose I am brought into a new relationship with Christ, but I was only as an individual, but also corporately. So I'm going with slow motion, I'm quite aware, through chapters 1 to 3, 5, and the connection in chapter 121, for the simple purpose that many people, in many parts, inside and outside of the churches are not going in slow motion, through exactly those sections. And you see what ramifications it has, if you do not pay attention to these careful transitions, and these significant sections. What follows that in 121 to 1314 is a life from love, and this sounds really vague, and some people have simply summarized that once you come to the gospel, you're no more under the law, throw out all the particulars of God's intention, and simply have a sense, a mentality of love, and you'll be perfectly fine. So if this particular relationship feels good to you for two years, pursue it. So long as it's sincere love, now you must be sincere, and then get out of that one, and try something else for size. But please, again, be sincere, be true to yourself, feel right about it, just make sure that you are considered about that other person, forget about children maybe from the former marriage, etc. So you see that you cannot end up in a situational ethics, and please don't misunderstand me when I say live from love, that it simply has to have this feeling of feel goodness. It is concrete. I'm quite convinced that Paul teaches, and you know that from our study on Galatians, that Paul teaches that as we pursue life by faith, life by dependency upon God that will end up fulfilling the law, that we will end up pursuing concrete aspects of God's instruction, but not by cranking it out, not by producing it ourselves, but by growing in the fruit of the Spirit, but there is a contact, a point of connection between the particular instructions of Godliness and the fruit of the Spirit. So when I say live from love, it's not vague, it's very concrete. It has very clear contours, but you must go back to 12-1, if you want to understand it right. Chapter 13 continues, this fulfilling of the law, loving your neighbor, except one another. Chapter 15-1-6 uses the example of Christ, and then we move to the conclusion, and by the way I am more and more convinced, as I have said that the introduction of letters is very significant. The conclusion is not just, by the way, since I'm writing this letter, let me read SongZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZoneZone how are these particular people doing? Send greetings to So-and-so, please let them know. Well, that's not formality for heaven's sakes. That is part of how are things going? What is the fruit of the Lord's work in this particular situation or in this sticky situation? And where are victories and where are real problems arising, et cetera, et cetera? So the conclusion of Paul's letter to the Romans, and I can't deal with all the literary critical analyses that have been made, serves as an expression of community. And it is very significant that this sharing occurs because thereby we can exhort each other, we can encourage each other, we can learn, we can help each other to look to the Lord who is the author of community with him and therefore also horizontal growth in communities. So this lengthy section in chapter 16 is a commentary on the fruit of God's salvation. It's not an appendix.